This Philly-based political firm is at the center of the Graham Platner fallout

As Democrats grapple with the fallout from Graham Platner’s scandal-plagued and ultimately canceled bid for U.S. Senate in Maine, a political consulting firm that worked on his race and that’s been heavily involved in Pennsylvania politics is at the center of many of the party’s frustrations.

FIGHT — a firm whose operatives were credited with helping elect U.S. Sen. John Fetterman in 2022 and who have worked on a pair of high-profile U.S. House races in Pennsylvania this year — has received a barrage of criticism as revelations about Platner’s past came to light in recent months.

Members of the firm weren’t the only ones advising Platner’s campaign. National operatives such as Daniel Moraff, who has also worked in Pennsylvania, have also fielded criticism for recruiting and not thoroughly vetting Platner, an unknown political outsider.

But both before and after the allegations of sexual assault that led to Platner’s exit from the race this week, other Democratic consultants and political observers blamed FIGHT for continuing to support him through multiple public setbacks.

Platner’s issues have also reignited anger about and drawn parallels to Fetterman, another candidate who ran as a working-class progressive. The Pennsylvania Democrat has lost much of the support from the base that elected him as he’s more frequently sided with Republicans in ways that some have described as a betrayal. He has not been accused of the same types of issues that plagued Platner’s run.

“I supported Graham at the beginning, despite the nagging voice in my head that kept saying ‘this feels familiar,’” Adam Jentleson, Fetterman’s first chief of staff who has become a staunch critic of the Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote on social media.

Jentleson was among those who questioned the FIGHT agency and the rest of the Platner team’s work and its handling of the collapse

When Morris Katz, the FIGHT strategist on Platner’s campaign, said on social media that his team advised to end the campaign immediately after hearing the allegations Platner had raped a former girlfriend, Jentleson replied that the argument “strains credulity.” Platner and his team had continued to deny the allegations, Jentleson and others noted.

“Shading a narrative towards the positive is standard, lying is not,” Jentleson wrote, comparing the experience to working with Fetterman.

Fetterman, for his part, has heavily criticized Platner in recent months and celebrated his downfall this week.

“You will only be remembered as the accused rapist that got pushed out of your election. ... Go back under the rock that you came from,” Fetterman said Wednesday on Fox News.

The Democratic Socialists of America, in a letter that mentioned the FIGHT staff’s work for Fetterman, called on candidates to refuse to work with Katz, The Intercept reported Friday.

FIGHT declined to comment to The Philadelphia Inquirer for this story.

As Democrats look to regain their footing in this year’s midterm elections, the Platner saga and FIGHT’s role has also touched on the party’s broader goals of cultivating candidates who can win over the kinds of working-class voters President Donald Trump captured in recent years.

Platner, an oyster farmer and former bartender who suffered PTSD after serving in the U.S. Marines, pitched himself as deeply in-tune with working class voters in Maine. It was the type of profile, many Democrats hoped, would lead to a victory over longtime Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and help the party win control of the U.S. Senate.

Democrats in Pennsylvania have taken a similar approach.

In a Lehigh Valley-based congressional district that is considered one of the likeliest seats in the country to flip from Republican to Democrat, the party has rallied behind Bob Brooks, a union leader and retired firefighter who coaches high school baseball and drives a snow plow.

“When you look at Brooks, one of the reasons he was recruited into this race and why Democrats have rallied around him is that there’s a belief that he might capture some of the [working-class Democratic] energy,” said Chris Borick, an adjunct professor of politics at Lehigh University.

The FIGHT agency, which primarily makes candidates’ television ads, has worked on Brooks’ campaign as well as the campaign of Paige Cognetti, the Scranton mayor and Democratic nominee in the Scranton-based 8th Congressional District.

There are no signs that Brooks or Cognetti are being advised by Katz, who has primarily worked on Platner’s campaign. In response to requests for comment Friday, Brooks’ campaign only confirmed that FIGHT makes its ads, and Cognetti’s campaign said, “Paige is glad Platner dropped out of the race.”

The Pennsylvania candidates have not faced the same type of intense criticisms for parts of their personal histories as Platner did throughout his 10-month campaign.

Brooks’ opponents in the 7th Congressional District primary criticized him for old social media posts that, for instance, downplayed the role of guns in a mass-shooting. Brooks said the posts were “silly, maybe stupid.” He, like Platner, also faced accusations that he could be “another John Fetterman,” given his background and similar appearance.

Mike Mikus, a Pittsburgh-based Democratic strategist who has long opposed Fetterman, said Brooks was “the real deal” at a time when Democrats are “desperate” to correct their problem with white, working-class voters. Platner, on the other hand, appeared to be an “overcorrection” that involved consultants dismissing “obvious red flags,” Mikus said.

He said FIGHT may lose some future clients because of the misstep, which he largely blamed on Moraff, a consultant who does not work for FIGHT and has also been widely criticized for recruiting Platner.

“Everybody’s looking for authenticity,” Mikus said. “And you can’t workshop somebody into something they’re not.”

Created after Trump and the Republican Party’s sweeping victories in 2024, the FIGHT agency’s pitch since its launch has focused on authenticity. Its candidates have reflected not just voters’ desires for candidates outside the traditional political establishment, but campaigns intent on fighting Trump and advancing economic populism. Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won New York’s mayoral race in 2025, has marked their largest success to date.

“Among progressives there’s a sense that the party has not been effective in trying to counter Trump … and we have to fight this battle internally in order to resist Trump,” said Stephen Medvic, an associate professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College. “So you’re getting groups in the last couple of years, like FIGHT Agency, being put together to try to tip the balance in their direction.”

But their approach — finding someone who meets the profile and aligns with their ideology — may not necessarily always produce a winning formula. Limitations may depend on the type of assessment and vetting that goes into recruitment, he said.

“You might get an AOC, but … you might get a Platner,” Medvic said. “A lot of Democrats are now regretting that they were so excited about Fetterman because he turned out to be something so different.”