Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign on April 30 after weeks of attack ads against her primary election opponent Graham Platner, but some attack ads are expected to continue due to funding from conservative political action committees.

In March of this year, Mills ran a series of ads focusing on her opponent Platner’s past social media comments that focused on her opponent Platner’s past comments from social media. The ads focused on comments he made on Reddit, including statements about sexual assault in Maine. Specifically, about women being sexually assaulted in Maine because they “get so f***** up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.” The comments were made after Platner returned from a tour in Afghanistan and was dealing with a lot of depression and PTSD.

Although these attack ads did draw a lot of attention, it piqued the curiosity of many Maine voters and other Americans out of state as to why he said these things. It ended up drawing attention to the mental health of veterans and Platner later issued an apology, stating the comments do not reflect who he is today. “I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings, for my rage, for my isolation,” Platner said back in October. During this 5 minute apology video, he not only covered his past reddit comments but he addressed the controversial Nazi tattoo that he obtained in 2007 in Croatia while on shore leave and has since covered it up. In March after the attack ads dropped, he reiterated that these comments do “not in any way reflect who I am today or the beliefs that I hold,” according to WMTM Maines Total Coverage.

These attack ads were created by a Republican-run PAC called The Pine Tree Results PAC who have donors from all over the United States. These donors include other PACs such as the Stronger America PAC which is affiliated with former Gov. of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson. Other funders like Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, New Balance CEO James s. Davis and the Lexington Fund, which is known as a dark money network linked to conservative activist Leonard Leo. Leo is known for his role in supporting conservative judicial appointments. According to Zeteo, Leo served as Trumps first-term judicial advisor and helped select three conservative judges. Leo continues to fight to make it harder for Mainers to vote to give Collins the advantage against the presumed Democratic nominee, Platner. The general election is expected to highlight contrasts between the candidates’ backgrounds and campaign support.