Morris Katz | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1998/1999 (age 26–27) Tribeca, New York, US |
| Occupation | Political strategist |
Morris Katz (born 1998 or 1999) is an American political strategist, known for working for the campaign for Zohran Mamdani in the 2025 New York City mayoral election. He was deputy media consultant for John Fetterman's 2022 Senate election campaign, and later worked for Dan Osborn's campaign in the 2024 Senate election in Nebraska. He is a close adviser of Mamdani and Graham Platner. [1] [2]
Morris Katz was born in 1998 or 1999 in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. [3] [4] He is the son of children's book author Julie Merberg and screenwriter David Bar Katz, who was a writer on the 2022 TV series American Gigolo , a writer and producer on Ray Donovan , and a collaborator with John Leguizamo on film and in theater. [1]
In middle school his father introduced him to Melissa DeRosa, who would later become a senior adviser to New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, telling her that Morris was interested in politics. Morris has stated that he told her to "hav[e] the governor stop blocking the mayor's attempt to raise the minimum wage and pass universal pre-K", though DeRosa has refuted this, saying that, "There's absolutely no way it's true he said that. I would remember." Morris attended Beacon High School, an elite public school in New York. While there, he wrote six screenplays before graduating; a teacher from the school said they remembered Katz as smart, though that "he did not give off political genius vibes at 17." He attended Skidmore College, during this time volunteering for Tedra Cobb, Democratic candidate in the 2018 House of Representatives elections in New York, who lost. [1]
After college, he entered the entertainment industry. He worked as a production assistant and wrote plays and screenplays. He wrote a profile of Erica D. Smith, who was running in the Democratic primary for the 2022 United States Senate election in North Carolina. Smith reached out to him after reading the piece and asked for him to join her campaign where he worked on ads and videos. [4] Afterwards, he moved to Pennsylvania to work as a deputy media consultant for Fetterman's 2022 senatorial campaign against Mehmet Oz. During the campaign he viewed hundreds of hours of Oz's show and bought his supplements to search for material to use for Fetterman's ads. [1] He and three partners including Tommy McDonald and Rebecca Katz, [5] [1] all veterans of the Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman campaigns, [5] founded the political consulting firm Fight Agency. [4] [6]
In 2024, Katz was an advisor for Dan Osborn who nearly defeated incumbent Nebraska Republican Senator Deb Fischer, [7] moving to Omaha to do so. Katz was credited by a colleague from this campaign for "creat[ing] the Osborn brand." The campaign outraised and outspent the Republican incumbent candidate Deb Fischer by $6 million, and Osborn lost by just over 6 points. [1]
In 2025, Katz was a top advisor to Zohran Mamdani during his campaign for mayor of New York City. [1] [8] While Katz and Mamdani shared similar backgrounds, Katz was persuaded to join Mamdani by his ideas on economic inequality. [1] He conceived themed television ads for the campaign including ones based on Law & Order , The Golden Bachelor , and New York Knicks games. [9] Though Katz's main work was making ads for the campaign, he also brokered conversations with political leaders, and particularly with Jewish leaders who were skeptical of Mamdani. Mamdani's campaign began by polling in the single digits, led to his win in the Democratic mayoral primary by 13 points. [1] In the aftermath of Mamdani's win, Katz commented the NPR on the hesitation of many in the Democratic Party to endorse him stating that "anyone who's scared to congratulate Zohran publicly or privately is very unlikely to be the nominee for president in 2028." [3]
In 2025, Katz was also a close advisor to Graham Platner, a candidate running in the Democratic primary in the 2026 United States Senate election in Maine. Until late 2025, Katz lied about his age, representing himself as two years older than he actually was. [1]