Mimicking Presidential

The down-ballot action is an echo of the 2012 presidential election in which dedicated super-PACs boosted Republican primary challengers Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, as well as President Barack Obama.

Federal court rulings and regulatory action in 2010 cleared the way for individuals, corporations and labor unions to make unlimited contributions in federal races through outside groups such as super-PACs.

The organizations can’t coordinate with candidates, who are still legally confined to federal contribution limits of $2,600 per election. Yet they can view each other’s public documents such as TV ad buys at local stations and FEC filings to develop synchronized strategies.

Some super-PACs have been using advertising footage, called b-roll, provided by the campaign itself through public postings on YouTube.com. Two Washington-based campaign-finance watchdogs, Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, recently filed FEC complaints about the practice, which they say is tantamount to illegal coordination.

Similar Ads

For television-viewing voters, it can be almost impossible to tell the difference between the candidate and the assisting group, said Elizabeth Wilner, a senior vice president at Kantar Media’s CMAG, an ad tracker based in New York. “Viewers will see the same images, hear the same message over and over, and it just all blends together.”

One pro-Kreegel ad shows him in a white coat and stethoscope interacting with patients. Later, footage of the candidate, his wife and children appears on screen. “Three candidates for Congress, but only one true conservative, Dr. Paige Kreegel,” a narrator says in the Values Are Vital ad.

The super-PAC’s TV commercials debuted almost three months before the candidate’s ads and ran five times more frequently, according to data compiled by CMAG. And Values Are Vital is just one of four super-PACs formed exclusively for the 19th congressional district contest.

“The Florida-19 situation with all of these outside groups will be more common than not by the end of the year,” Wilner said.