Politics

Top Mamdani aide takes progressive project to the UK

Published

8 months ago

March 6, 2026

NEW YORK — Morris Katz, a top adviser to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, quietly traveled to the United Kingdom last month to meet with local progressive politicians hoping to learn tools of the trade from the young strategist.

Katz’s trip coincided with the rise of a new left-wing challenge to the embattled Labour government from the Green Party, which snatched away a Manchester-area parliamentary seat in a February special election.

One of the architects of Mamdani’s stunning election last year, Katz confirmed to Blue Light News that he had ventured into British politics and described it as part of a global political struggle. He said he was there to offer members of the U.K.’s Labour and Green parties advice on mounting effective campaigns for elected office.

“The fight against the aligned interests of the oligarchy and the far right is an international one, and I’ll try to be helpful wherever I can,” the 26-year-old progressive political strategist said this week when asked about his February trip.

Among the players Katz met with: Rosie Wrighting and Gordon McKee, two Labour members of Parliament, and Rowenna Davis, a Labour politician running for mayor of Croydon, a town in South London. Katz confirmed Labour and Green operatives initiated contact and asked him to come over for the meetings.

Mamdani has emerged as something of a political beacon for progressive parties in other countries, including the U.K. and Canada.

The British left’s overture to Katz highlights how progressive movements around the world are looking at the Mamdani campaign’s populist playbook as ripe for replication. And it speaks to how elements of the American left increasingly see themselves as part of a global project.

Katz said he has continued to hold virtual meetings with members of both parties since returning stateside and plans to speak with Green leadership in the coming weeks.

Top: King Charles III talks to Gordon McKee, one of the politicians Morris Katz spoke with. Katz also spoke with Rowenna Davis (bottom right) and Rosie Wrighting (bottom left). | Aaron Chown-WPA Pool via Getty Images; Jonnyb1234/Wikimedia Commons; Nicky J Sims/Getty Images

The in-person sit-downs in the U.K., Katz said, revolved around his strategy and messaging techniques, with the U.K. politicians seeking to glean more insight into his overall approach. The Mamdani aide has become known for producing made-to-go-viral social media content highlighting progressive policy prescriptions for bread-and-butter issues like childcare costs.

Katz said his engagements in the U.K. were unpaid and that he’s not looking to start running campaigns across the pond this year, in part because he’s busy with the U.S. congressional midterms. But he expressed openness to working with progressives there on a paid basis in the future, opening the door to a key Mamdani adviser becoming an international political fixer.

Katz wouldn’t be the first U.S. progressive to help like-minded British politicians. Advisers to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) helped former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s unsuccessful 2017 campaign for prime minister.

Drawing connections across different countries’ politics can be complicated, and while Mamdani’s high-octane style of campaigning can generate excitement in places other than New York, it’s not clear that everyone he met with on his travels overseas buys into his ideological project. Wrighting and McKee are prolific on social media platforms like TikTok, much like the New York City executive, but are mainstream Labour backbenchers.

Spokespeople for the Green and Labour parties did not return requests for comment about the meetings with Katz.

Morris Katz has been sharing advice with British politicians. | David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

The Labour Party lost a key parliamentary election last week after the Greens, a much smaller party, ran a 34-year-old candidate who focused her campaign on tackling a spiraling cost-of-living crisis. The candidate, 34-year-old former plumber Hannah Spencer, has argued since her victory that it’s a winning message for the Green Party to continue emphasizing.

“We ran a hopeful campaign backed by thousands of volunteers and activists. We defeated the parties of billionaire donors,” Spencer wrote in an op-ed in The Guardian last week.

Sound familiar?

Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor, in last summer’s mayoral primary after aggressively centering his campaign around proposals aimed at making the city more affordable for working class New Yorkers.

The U.K.’s left-leaning parties, especially Labour following last month’s election setback, likely see Mamdani’s messaging model as something they can harness in future campaigns. That’s where Katz comes in.

Katz, who calls himself a populist politics “believer,” has been credited with spearheading the Mamdani campaign’s laser focus on promising to fight for a more affordable city by raising taxes on the rich to expand social safety nets, including making public transit and child care programs free. Though he hasn’t joined Mamdani’s administration, Katz is seen as very close with the mayor and continues to advise him on both governmental and political matters, joining him, for instance, for both of his high-profile meetings with President Donald Trump.

“The Brits can use some excitement in their politics,” Doug Muzzio, a longtime political scientist in New York who is not affiliated with Mamdani or his team, said when asked to opine on Katz’s U.K. moves. “So if Mamdani’s engaging style is something that can be replicated over there that would probably be very welcome.”

It isn’t unusual for campaign consultants to embark on a traveling road show abroad after successful domestic stints. Political advice is among the most American of exports: Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager, advised Sali Berisha of Albania’s opposition party after his 2024 White House run. Bob Shrum, the former Democratic presidential candidate adviser and speechwriter, advised Ehud Barak in Israel’s 1999 election for prime minister and the British Labour Party under former Prime Minister Tony Blair. And James Carville, the veteran political strategist, also advised Blair, along with having done work in more than 20 countries.

“A guy gets elected and they like you, and somebody calls: ‘Hey, somebody from such and such called us,’ and they’ll recommend people. I mean, it’s a kind of networking thing,” Carville said. “The perception is our political consultants are better than they actually are.”

But Katz’s adventures abroad likely say more about his principal than the consultant. Of Mamdani, Carville says: “He’s an object of curiosity.” In the same way that former President Bill Clinton’s popularity abroad juiced Carville’s prospects, Mamdani and his retinue are drawing longing glances from international compatriots.

“A lot of people hired me just to say we got Clinton’s guy,” Carville said.

And now more than ever, an appetite for progressive insights is sweeping Europe: Just last month, organizers of the Munich Security Conference hosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who in her remarks connected income inequality to the global rise of authoritarianism.

“Voters in democracies in Europe and elsewhere are responding to a lot of the same things that American voters are,” said Matt Duss, who advised Ocasio-Cortez on her Munich trip and is executive vice president at the progressive think tank Center for International Policy. “That’s a system of government that has not delivered for them, that they see as captured by special interests that are not responsive to their needs.”

Duss, who also previously served as foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders, said there is a global appetite for that brand of progressivism.

“I do think Bernie obviously has inspired a lot of colleagues in other democracies. Mamdani is a name that we hear a lot from our colleagues in Europe on the left,” Duss said. “People are watching and learning from each other. American progressives have things to learn as our colleagues in Europe innovate and vice versa.”

A New York City Board of Elections sticker is seen outside of a polling site at P.S. 20 in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 4, 2025.

Going international is not without risks.

Witness, for example, Ocasio-Cortez’s reception in Munich, on-camera and widely clipped miscues on everything from mislabeling the Trans-Atlantic partnership the Trans-Pacific Partnership to suggesting Venezuela was below not above the Equator. (On the ground, leaders’ embrace of her was warmer than the social media maw.)

Were Katz to get officially involved in the U.S., he may not go at it alone. He is the co-founder of Fight Agency, a consulting firm made up of a number of veterans of the American progressive movement who could also get roped into working with him overseas. Among them: Rebecca Katz, an alum of former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration who has managed a number of successful congressional campaigns in recent years.

Rebecca Katz, who is not related to Morris Katz, did not comment for this story.

Domestically, Morris Katz’s travels abroad posed some obstacles for a candidate in his stable.

“It was very hard to communicate with him and his team during the January, February timeframe, because he was over there,” said Nathan Sage, the former Iowa Senate candidate and Katz client who dropped out of the race in mid-February. “I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea what that is, but I do know that it was difficult.”

Despite that, Sage said he would recommend Katz’s firm to others.

John Johnston contributed to this report.

Politics

Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens endorses Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan Senate

Published

2 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race on Sunday — a stunning break with her party that derails Democrats’ attempts to create a united front for Abdul El-Sayed.

Her endorsement comes just a few days after she said she was going to vote for El-Sayed.

The two former primary rivals have been locked in a public, escalating feud over El-Sayed’s and his allies’ criticism of Israel.

“Abdul said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he’s right,” Stevens said in a video posted to social media on Sunday after she appeared at a Detroit church alongside Rogers.

“And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” she said. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.”

Politics

November 2026

Published

5 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Political cartoons from the desk of Matt Wuerker

Politics

Progressives and moderate Dems are already jockeying to claim credit for Tuesday

Published

5 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

For Democrats, the size of their victory matters.

Progressives and moderates have been sparring all cycle over who will get to claim credit if they win on Tuesday. A new POLITICO Poll shows that the bigger the win, the more Democrats appear inclined to see it as a mandate to run more progressive candidates.

A smaller-than-expected victory next week would leave the party — and voters — torn over which direction to go.

The results reveal that the midterm election will have major implications over the next stage of the Democratic Party war over their identity — and could give progressives fresh ammunition ahead of a critical 2028 presidential race. Party insiders are closely watching contests where that infighting has been on display: From Abdul El-Sayed’s battle for Michigan Senate and Troy Jackson’s for Maine Senate, to Randy Villegas’ House race in California and Manny Rutinel’s in Colorado.

More than a dozen Democratic Party operatives and strategists said in interviews that both factions are already preparing to see a blue wave as validation of its own approach. Top super PACs and campaign firms are finishing strategy memos and finalizing lineups for a slate of post-election conferences where they intend to claim their way is the party’s future.

“You know what they say: Victory has a thousand mothers, right?” said Oliver Libby, the Democratic author behind the book “Strong Floor, No Ceiling,” which became a rallying cry for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries this cycle.

The survey, conducted by PF Global, found Democrats are nearly evenly split over what a smaller-than-expected victory next week would mean for future elections: 37% said it would signal a need to run more progressive candidates in the next election, while 35% said it would show the party should run more moderates. Another 28% said they didn’t know.

Those divisions largely fall along ideological lines. Among self-identified progressives, 52% said a smaller-than-expected victory would show that Democrats should run more progressive candidates. Meanwhile, a 45% plurality of self-identified moderates said that the same result would be evidence that the party should nominate more moderates, while just 28% percent said to run more progressives.

But if Democrats sweep key races — presented in the survey as a “large victory” — both progressives and moderates move toward running more progressive candidates in the next election. A majority of self-identified progressives — 61% — said it would show that the party should run more progressive candidates, while 35% of self-identified moderates agreed (compared with the 28% who said this for a smaller margin of victory).

A majority of Democratic midterm voters, including majorities of both self-identified progressives and moderates, also said a large victory would mean the party has a winning strategy for the 2028 presidential election, according to the poll.

“If Democrats had half a brain cell, they would look for the things that those two movements have in common,” said Chuck Rocha, a veteran Democratic strategist who has advised prominent candidates in both camps. “Whoever can combine these two things is who’s going to end up being somebody who is going to be a stalwart in ‘28.”

Progressives are eager for Tuesday’s results to bolster their argument that the party should move further to the left and that their candidates can win in competitive general elections. They’ve spent years feeling like they were being discounted by the party’s establishment wing, which was convinced that only more moderate candidates could cut into Trump’s coalition.

Progressives have cast a slate of battleground House and Senate races where their candidates felled more moderate primary rivals as major proof points — none more so than El-Sayed in purple Michigan’s marquee Senate race. A victory there, they say, could help springboard some of their biggest stars, like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), for presidential bids. Both representatives and a slate of other progressive surrogates up through Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have hit the trail to help.

“Our North Star in 2026 is to prove the concept that bold, shake up the system economic fighters can win anywhere, including purple and red areas, as a prelude to the presidential election in 2028,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “We think we will have plenty to work with after the election. For us, Abdul is Exhibit A.”

PCCC is drafting a memo touting what it predicts as “two common themes in election winners: Outsiders and economic fighters who challenge corporate power,” according to a draft viewed by Blue Light News.

Moderates, meanwhile, are poised to point to results as evidence that building broad coalitions can help Democrats compete in Republican strongholds.

“The interpretation game is already under way,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist think-tank Third Way, which has been conducting advertising analysis and polling the electorate, with plans to release its findings after Election Day. “[Progressives] are going to cherry pick the couple of races that they win, and they are going to say, therefore … everybody should go to the left.”

A memo from The Bench — a Democratic organization that supports candidates with real-world experience, such as teachers, nurses or veterans — touts recruits like James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas as evidence of the strength of its approach working. Public polling shows Talarico and Hamilton in a competitive position in once-solid safe red states.

“While much of the Democratic establishment was busy studying how to talk to working people, our answer was simpler: Run them,” the memo released this week reads.

“I saw Democrats, a lot of people in the 2020 primary, adopt positions that were just electoral poison,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith, an architect of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign who is a senior adviser to The Bench and works with The Bench’s sister organization, Majority Democrats. “You had Democrats say decriminalize border crossing, defund the police, and things like that. And we just can’t go back there as a party. We’re not going to be a majority party if we go down that road again.”

A new memo obtained by Blue Light News from Blue Dog PAC, a moderate Democratic group chaired by Rep. Adam Gray (D-Calif.), already makes the case that there was a “Blue Dog overperformance in 2024 and the Trump era.” It points to over a dozen House races the group is involved in that were initially rated as “Solid Republican” or “Likely Republican” by the Cook Political Report, and are finishing the cycle in the “Lean Republican,” “Toss Up” and “Lean Democratic” columns.

But some Democrats say that all this focus on who won the progressive-moderate fight is missing the point entirely.

“Actually doing something if we do win majorities, that’s more important than a bunch of memos saying we’re the reason we won,” said Bill Neidhardt, who worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and is now advising Will Lawrence, who’s running for Michigan’s 7th District, and working to boost El-Sayed.

“Whether one super PAC says to the other super PAC, ‘We’re the better super PAC’ — I just think if that’s what victory looks like to you in 2026, you’re going to set the Democrats up to lose in 2028,” he added.