Ex-Democratic Socialists of America official working as top consultant to Osborn, Platner
Marc Rod
Jewish Insider
April 22, 2026
A former Democratic Socialists of America organizer has been a top advisor to independent Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn and Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Daniel Moraff was a longtime DSA member, including acting as a local and national DSA organizer and leader in the mid-to-late 2010s, though he said his membership lapsed in 2019 because his local chapter became too focused on internal matters. He argued in a now-deleted 2017 article that the best way for socialists to gain political power and achieve elective office would be by running in Democratic primaries.
He subsequently recruited now-Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), among the farthest-left and most anti-Israel members of the House, to run for the Pennsylvania Statehouse, and served as her campaign manager.
Moraff reportedly helped recruit Osborn into the Nebraska Senate race in 2024 and has continued to serve as a consultant for Osborn. Campaign disclosures show that Osborn’s wife, Megan Osborn, has received compensation from Moraff’s firm for work on her husband’s current Senate campaign.
Osborn has cultivated an image as a heterodox populist, seeking to appeal to moderate and Republican voters, by adopting center-right views on border security and government spending while maintaining progressive views on abortion rights and unions.
Osborn was also recently endorsed by the anti-Israel group A New Policy.
“Daniel Moraff has advised candidates across the country who seek to give the working class a voice in our politics. The fact those candidates have diverse backgrounds and beliefs is not a story,” an Osborn spokesperson said in a statement to Jewish Insider.
Amid a reshuffle of Platner’s campaign — he shed staff as revelations emerged about his tattoo of a Nazi symbol and extreme prior social media posts — Moraff reportedly served as Platner’s de-facto campaign manager.
Platner’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Moraff personally.
In addition to his DSA ties, as a Brown University student in 2012, Moraff was an undergraduate representative on an advisory committee on investment practices, responsible for “dialogue” with Brown Students for Justice in Palestine over its push for Brown to divest from Israeli-linked companies.
The committee, with Moraff as a signatory, said in a letter to Brown’s president that “the documented abuses of Palestinian citizens by the Israeli Defense Force in the Occupied Territories are deeply troubling” and “Israel is indisputably engaged in ongoing systemic abuses of human rights and violations of international law, as documented by the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice.”
The committee said that Brown University may be invested “in firms whose products and services are being used to commit human rights violations in Palestine” and recommended further discussions over divestment.
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