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Left-wing Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is spotlighting a local church in an ad seeking to win over voters - but the congregation says it wants nothing to do with his campaign.
Sullivan Harbor Baptist Church, located in Platner's hometown, appears in a 30-second spot the Platner campaign rolled out earlier in March. The video, titled "The Veteran Who Came Home," features military veterans endorsing Platner's campaign and is interspersed with shots of the American flag and the white clapboard church.
"We as Sullivan Harbor Baptist Church do not endorse this or any candidate," the church wrote on Facebook last week. "We wish that he would remove our photo on his post."
The ad comes as Platner, a staunch progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has faced fierce backlash over his since-removed chest tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol and controversial online comments that resurfaced in 2025.
He is running to unseat longtime Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November's midterm elections, but first he faces Gov. Janet Mills in the Democratic primary, in a battle pitting the party's establishment against its far-left flank.
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The Platner campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital about whether it would take down the ad or remove the church from campaign materials.
Despite the church's plea, versions of the ad continued to run on Facebook and Instagram, according to a Fox Digital review of the Platner campaign's digital ad spending.
The campaign's appeals to patriotism and faith come as he attempts to overcome a host of controversies tied to old Reddit posts that reemerged in fall 2025.
The Mills campaign, which has the tacit support of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., unveiled its first negative ad last week ripping Platner for making crude remarks in 2013 suggesting women deserved sexual assault.
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Platner's campaign immediately fired back with an ad seeking to move past the controversy.
"These are words and statements I abhor," Platner says in the spot. "So, Maine, I'm asking you not to judge me for the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago, but who I am today."
The Republican National Committee slammed Platner for featuring the church in his campaign ad.
"Invoking religion in this ad was a transparent attempt to distract people from the fact that Graham Platner is a morally bankrupt, Nazi-sympathizing, rapist-apologizing, chauvinist," RNC spokeswoman Kristen Cianci said in a statement. "It's no wonder Platner's hometown church can't stomach being associated with him."
Platner also referred to himself as a communist, denigrated law enforcement as "bastards" and suggested White Americans are "racist" and "stupid" in other since-deleted posts on Reddit.
He has largely blamed his comments on a period of "disillusionment" he experienced after his military service concluded. The Maine Democrat is a combat veteran who served multiple overseas deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Platner, an oyster farmer and political newcomer, has consistently led Mills in polling ahead of the state's June primary despite the two-term governor's high name recognition from decades in public life.
He is running on an anti-establishment, far-left platform that has drawn large crowds on the campaign trail. Platner, 41, also frequently talks about the need for generational change - a direct hit on Mills, 78, who would be the oldest freshman senator in U.S. history if elected in November.
