Groom election 2025: Where federal candidates are targeting voters

An analysis of election spending from the major Groom candidates has revealed how much they are pumping in to advertising – and the issues they are targeting.

Independent Groom candidate Suzie Holt is using a significant portion of her estimated $500,000 election war chest to target voters through her social media channels.

According to data from Facebook’s parent company Meta, Ms Holt has poured nearly $31,000 into advertising on the platform since January 16.

Comparatively, incumbent LNP MP Garth Hamilton has funnelled in nearly $11,000, while returning independent candidate Kirstie Smolenski has spent about $2.7k.

Labor candidate Richard Edwards has spent a minuscule $64 on reaching constituents who use Facebook.

No Meta spend could be found for any other candidate.

Some of the ads Ms Holt has promoted include chatter around affordable housing, training people locally and education.

The ads have been targeted towards no particular gender or age.

Ms Holt was also called out for posting an advertisement that ran without a disclaimer, but this amounted to less than $100 of the total $31k bill.

In total, she has run 194 ads in the last 90 days.

Mr Hamilton’s advertising has mostly been aimed at men and women, but 20 per cent of his ads have been individually targeted at either male or female voters.

Almost all of his advertising has targeted people over the age of 35.

But this dips lower when you head into younger age brackets, with only 57 per cent of his ads targeted towards 18-21 year olds.

Mr Hamilton’s active ads are primarily geared towards the Liberal National Party’s policies on easing cost of living pressures.

He also had a small percentage of his ad spend aimed at people interested in sporting events and the Olympics.

Ms Smolenski’s advertising hones in on housing for women, passenger rail to Brisbane, HECS debt and education.

Of the 32 advertisements she has run in the past 90 days, almost all were targeted towards voters under the age of 35.

Only just over half of these ads were aimed at Groom voters over the age of 60.

A couple of her advertisements specifically had voters with some form of university degree in their sights.

The analysis comes as the candidates faced off at a forum in Toowoomba this week.

Originally published as Groom election 2025: Where federal candidates are targeting voters