This has occasionally led to some humorous viewing. In 2014, the campaign of Senator Mitch McConnell dropped nearly two and a half minutes of footage of the senator signing papers, sitting on a couch with his wife, and giving awkward smirks at the camera (which spawned a meme known as #McConnelling).
In 2016, the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz posted nearly 15 hours of footage to YouTube, including outtakes and off-camera coaching from the candidate to his mother. Viewed in a vacuum, it appeared to be largely worthless bloopers. To a super PAC, it was endless footage.
Some campaigns have taken public coordination with their super PACs to the extremes. Carly Fiorina, a Republican candidate for president in 2016, relied on her super PAC to stage events, provide signage and staff the sign-up table, on top of advertising.
Under F.E.C. rules, Ms. Fiorina’s super PAC could not call the campaign headquarters for a future schedule. So Ms. Fiorina’s campaign created a public Google calendar, which it updated weeks into the future, showing the events she had planned.
Even the super PAC’s name, Carly for America, was itself an evasion of an F.E.C. regulation that prohibits super PACs from using a candidate’s name as part of their own. But the group claimed “Carly” was merely an acronym for Conservative, Authentic, Responsive Leadership for You.
The F.E.C. hasn’t shown an eagerness to enforce many campaign finance laws for the past decade, and it has lacked a quorum of commissioners since September. The Campaign Legal Center’s complaint is unlikely to be resolved for at least two to three years, Mr. Fischer said.
So, with less than five days to go before caucus day, the $290,000 in additional ad reservations that VoteVets has in Nevada is likely to remain unchanged.