Lindsey Graham campaign ad features image of opponent with digitally altered darker skin tone

(CNN) Sen. Lindsey Graham's reelection campaign posted an advertisement to Facebook earlier this month featuring a digitally altered image of his opponent -- who is Black -- with a darker skin tone.

The campaign ad, uploaded to Graham's Facebook on July 23, includes an image of his Senate rival Jaime Harrison that was originally published in the New York Times. The version of the image in Graham's ad, however, shows Harrison surrounded by a dark, portrait-style background effect with a notably darker skin tone.

"Hollywood continues to bankroll my opponent, raising tens of thousands in campaign cash to attack me -- but they fail to understand this simple fact: South Carolinians won't stand for Radical Leftists telling them how to think and how to vote," the Facebook post states. "Are you with me?"

The Graham campaign told CNN an effect was used in creating the ad but pointed to past Facebook advertisements in which they said the same effect was used on Graham's face, and called the issues raised about it a "non-story."

"It's sad that detractors are making up fake accusations about this graphic -- intended to highlight Jaime Harrison's support from Kathy Griffin, a liberal actress who once posed with a fake severed head of Donald Trump," T.W. Arrighi, communications director for Graham's campaign, told CNN in a statement Tuesday.