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Thanks to the wealth of personal information collected online, advertisers can get pretty specific about who sees their ads.

And now, the same tools that put eerily well-timed product ads on your feed are helping campaigns target you with their pitches.

So far this year, Google’s political ad database lists $23.2 million worth of political ad spending in Arizona. That covers things like website banner ads, YouTube video interruptions and sponsored results on Google searches.

But unlike standard product ads, Google lets political advertisers tailor only three demographic factors when selecting who gets their messages: gender, age and location.

That’s still enough flexibility to make for some interesting targeting decisions. And luckily for us, those choices aren’t secret.

We dug through this year’s data to see how Arizonans’ gender, age and ZIP codes shape the political ads they see — and who advertisers are deliberately leaving out.

There are plenty of reasons political campaigns might target men and women separately, and they don’t all have to do with a gender-specific political message.

Advertisers can run identical ads to men and women to compare how each group responds, for example, then use those results to fine-tune their advertising strategies.

But in some cases, like Turning Point PAC’s Google ads slamming Gov. Katie Hobbs, the gender targeting seems pretty intentional.

The conservative group bankrolling Republican gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs’ campaign ran ads mocking Hobbs’ refusal to debate, set against a football field and running track and narrated by a stereotypical sports announcer.

The screen flashes: “YOU.”

So far this year, Google’s ad database lists 75 total Turning Point-sponsored Arizona ads, and 36 of them are targeted exclusively to men. That’s an estimated male-only ad spend of at least $627,000.

Another 38 ads have no gender preference. But Turning Point spent another roughly $35,000 on its sole women-only ad.

That one features ponies.

The commercial shows horses majestically running through a river, interspersed with black-and-white headshots of Hobbs, and alleges that “Katie Hobbs tried to get rid of them.”¹

Other advertisers have used the gender divide more creatively. The Reproductive Freedom for All PAC, a national abortion rights group, ran women-only ads attacking Republican Congressional District 1 candidate Jay Feely, whose campaign leans heavily on his NFL career.

The ad opens with a mocking male announcer parodying Feely’s campaign in a cartoonishly macho tone: “Football, football, football! Trump!” Then it switches to a female narrator who calls out Feely’s support for abortion bans.

Political advertisers are spending far more to reach older Arizonans than younger ones — and in many cases, they’re leaving out the younger ones altogether.

The senior targeting makes sense: Older voters are more likely to show up at the polls, so advertisers spend big to persuade them.

While Google’s data shows 146 political ads targeting Arizonans 55 and older — worth more than $1 million in ad spending — there are only 14 ads targeted to those under 35.

And more than 700 ads ask Google to completely exclude the under-35 demographic.

A litany of 55+ targeted ads comes from national PACs calling out Republicans for restricting Medicare and Social Security benefits, but there’s also a wide selection for the MAGA-minded seniors.

That includes the overtly racist attack ad against Republican state schools chief candidate Kimberly Yee, which made the news during the primary election.

The surreptitious Arizonans for Election Integrity PAC paid more than $40,000 to run the ad twice, both times targeted to those 55 and up. It received nearly 1.5 million impressions.

Conversely, campaigns have decided the youth vote isn’t worth the ad dollars.

Of the 14 ads only targeting voters under 35, most were also run separately for older age groups. Only one of them, from Republican Sen. Carine Werner’s reelection campaign, seemed designed specifically for young voters.

It features several first-time voters who admit they’re “not really into politics,” but say Werner is a “mom, so she gets it,” and will make housing more affordable — a pitch aimed at a generation increasingly priced out of homeownership, especially in Werner’s north Phoenix and Scottsdale district.

If you’re unlucky enough to live in a competitive congressional district, there’s little hope of escaping Google’s campaign ads.

That’s especially true in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 6, where Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani is fighting for reelection against Democrat JoAnna Mendoza. Ciscomani narrowly won the seat in both 2022 and 2024, and both candidates are flooding the district with attack ads.

That’s made CD6 one of the most saturated Google ad markets among the state’s U.S. House races. Google’s database lists more than 200 ads there totaling at least $1.3 million in spending.

The northeastern Maricopa County battleground of CD1, where Feely is battling Democrat Amish Shah for a seat in Congress, is similarly saturated. Campaigns have run fewer ads there, but Google’s spending ranges put the two districts roughly even in total spending.

The congressional race has helped make 85050, which covers Phoenix’s Desert Ridge community, the single most targeted Arizona ZIP code based on spending. There, residents are caught in the crossfire of both the CD1 race and the battle for all three legislative seats in competitive Legislative District 2.

Meanwhile, some corners of Arizona barely registered on advertisers’ radar. Among 400 Arizona ZIP codes with targeted ads, the 20 with the least spending attached were largely on the Navajo and Hopi reservations or in small rural and border communities.

In other words, the ads you see this fall say a lot about who campaigns think you are — and who they’ve already written off.

A big, Heaping mess: Critics say Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap has repeatedly made questionable moves that are setting the stage for him to cast blame if his office faces election administration problems, Stephanie Murray reports for the Republic. He called the FBI on election workers (who were later cleared) and claimed that mail-in ballots would be routed through San Diego (the USPS denied that) — among a few other recent decisions that raised eyebrows.

Watchful at the gates: The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about sending ICE or the National Guard to polling sites on Election Day, and Arizona’s election officials are wary. Advocacy organizations are preparing for how to respond if soldiers do show up, Votebeat’s Sasha Hupka reports. Living United for Change in Arizona — or LUCHA — said it’s trained hundreds of poll observers on how to respond if federal agents show up. Mi Familia en Acción filed a preliminary complaint in federal court to preemptively block any such move by Trump, and the ACLU of Arizona sent a letter to each county outlining applicable laws if troops or agents show up.

Kafka’s nightmare lives: Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton is raising a fuss about the Department of Homeland Security using a Federal Emergency Management Agency building as an immigration court, which he said was unmarked and which he was blocked from entering for hours, Jerod MacDonald-Evoy writes for the Mirror. Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review answered questions about the secretive court — which is one of several new “pop-up” immigration courts that have been sprouting up across the country, per Bloomberg.

Not monkeying around: Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes is joining 11 state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission in a bipartisan antitrust lawsuit aimed at preventing a merger between two playground equipment makers, David Baker reports for AZ Family. The prospective merger would hog the nation’s swings, slides and monkey bars by reducing competition and lead to higher prices and less innovation, the lawsuit claims, because five companies currently control about 90% of the U.S. market.

Ready for takeoff: After traveling extensively around the country this year to raise funds and meet voters, Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly has become one of the left’s top prospects for a 2028 presidential ru Hill reports. By the end of the midterms — after which he said he’ll decide whether or not he’s going to run — Kelly will have campaigned for Democrats in almost 20 states across the nation, especially in key swing jurisdictions.

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission is the state’s only official, nonpartisan voter education resource — created by Arizona voters for voters.

We publish the voter education guide, host the debates, and break down what’s on your ballot. Not who you should vote for — what you need to know before you do.

The wacky battle over an Arizona lottery ticket worth $12.8 million isn’t getting any simpler, Axios’ Zach Buchanan reports in his ongoing coverage of the contested lottery ticket kerfuffle.

After former Scottsdale Circle K store manager Robert Gawlitza clocked out to buy a winning ticket that a customer requested but could not pay for, said customer Soonchun Kim is joining the smackdown and making her claim over the ticket.

She hasn’t really provided any theory for why it’s rightfully hers.

Meanwhile, Gawlitza claims (and other employees attest) that the company had an unwritten policy of “forcing employees to purchase printed-but-unsold tickets,” Buchanan writes.

There’s a November 6 hearing set for the case, and as more characters vie for the jackpot, don’t expect things to get sorted out anytime soon.