Inside the fast-and-loose campaign engine behind Graham Platner

Rushing to launch Graham Platner’s Senate bid, Dan Moraff, a progressive up-and-comer and Platner’s top strategist, asked a Democratic research firm to vet the political novice, according to people familiar with the matter. A thorough background check of a Senate candidate, which has become standard practice in key races, can take several weeks and cost roughly $20,000 or a monthly retainer. Moraff asked for an expedited, cheaper review to be done within days, the people said.

In three days, New York-based Northside Research produced a brief risk-assessment memo for Moraff in lieu of a detailed research book — or the start of one — that can be hundreds of pages long. The expedited product laid out risks for the campaign, flagging some of Platner’s Reddit posts as the biggest threat to his budding campaign, some of those people said. The firm, which was paid $6,250, according to federal disclosures, followed up days later with additional limited vetting. They didn’t do a candidate interview or questionnaire.

Less than two weeks later, Platner announced his bid. The expedited research didn’t discover issues that would later hurt his campaign, including the full trove of Platner’s Reddit posts or sexually explicit texts Platner sent to other women while married.

In pulling an oyster farmer and Marine veteran from obscurity, and then opting for an abbreviated vetting process, Moraff has placed Democratic Party hopes for capturing a majority of Senate seats this year on unsteady footing. Platner faces continued scrutiny and a barrage of GOP attacks over old posts, a covered-up Nazi-linked tattoo and his previous relationships with women. MSI previously reported that Platner emerged as Democrats’ risky Maine Senate candidate.

A Platner campaign official said they didn’t have the resources to do a more extensive vet, which the official said wouldn’t have turned up any more meaningful information.

With a disdain for traditional Democratic campaign organizations, Moraff has set out to disrupt the party’s ecosystem of consultants and campaign strategists. Core to Moraff’s political philosophy is a belief that voters want outsiders to run for office and are willing to look past personal transgressions, as long as the candidate can connect with them. In Maine, Platner won more than 70% of the Democratic primary vote this month, becoming his party’s Senate nominee.

“Real people who have lived real lives are giving voters something they’ve been starving for,” Moraff said in a statement. “People want someone who will fight for them, not someone who’s been dreaming of power since they were in middle school and lived their lives accordingly.”

Moraff said criticism of his management was coming from party insiders “to smear the people resisting their control over a party in dire need of change.”

Platner’s working-class message and political charisma have broken through with Maine voters, and his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins remains competitive despite revelations about his past. But some Democrats fear Platner’s unvetted background could still cost them. Some of Platner’s family members have expressed unease with Moraff’s decision-making, according to people familiar with the matter, raising concerns with some campaign staff about the race causing long-term problems for Platner.

Moraff handled the nonstop hits on the candidate’s past posts with an air of nonchalance, according to people familiar with the matter. He has told staff, “Good vibes only,” when problems come up.

Moraff’s backers call him a brilliant disrupter with a fresh perspective who doesn’t mind rubbing people the wrong way to win. But his work for Platner fits a pattern of management of previous campaigns, according to more than a dozen people who have worked with him over the last decade. In particular, candidate vetting has been a frequent source of tension.

In Pittsburgh, he was involved in Turahn Jenkins’s 2018 campaign to take on the county’s district attorney. Less than a week into his campaign, progressive groups backed away from Jenkins when it emerged that he belonged to a church that held antigay views. Jenkins, who lost the election, declined to comment on the race or on Moraff.

Brandi Fisher, who leads a police-accountability organization in Pittsburgh, called the campaign “a debacle” but said she holds Jenkins, rather than Moraff, responsible for not revealing the church views. She acknowledged that Moraff’s work has caused friction with other activists. “Daniel moves fast,” she said. “Daniel makes mistakes, because he’s aggressive. Any time you’re a very aggressive, risk-taking person, things are going to come up.”

In New York, Moraff worked as campaign manager for state Senate candidate Debbie Medina. Her 2016 admission that she beat her son as a child with a belt derailed her campaign. Moraff later touted her getting 40.5% of the vote despite “a major scandal in the middle of her campaign” in a 2017 op-ed for the progressive magazine In These Times. Moraff told the Journal he didn’t recruit Medina, who had previously run for office.

More recently in Iowa, Moraff recruited Nathan Sage, a veteran and former executive director for the Knoxville chamber of commerce, to run for U.S. Senate. In that race, Moraff also did a preliminary vet instead of a more thorough check, according to people familiar with the matter. Sage, who dropped out this February, said Moraff shifted his attention almost entirely to Maine once he found Platner.

“He’s a mad scientist with politics,” Platner told the Journal.