New Filings Show The Nelk Boys’ 2024 Trump Turnout Operation Was An Arm of the Trump Operation
One of the biggest storylines coming out of the 2024 election was young men’s support for Donald Trump, largely driven by content creators focused on them. Specifically, the Nelk Boys’ Send the Vote effort, which purported to spend $20 million to reach young men. This was in addition to Chaotic Era’s research, which found that “the nonprofit affiliates of 18 conservative media organizations received $260.2 million in contributions from major donors and foundations.”
Send the Vote Was Entirely Funded by Trump’s Main Nonprofit
At its launch, John Shahidi, a co-founder of Send the Vote and president of “Full Send,” said, “We have seen a growing movement of young people across this country rallying behind a pro-freedom, pro-America agenda for our country’s future who want to see prosperity and opportunity restored for all.” After the election, UFC president Dana White specifically thanked the Nelk Boys at Trump’s victory party.
According to recently released filings, Send the Vote received $10.4 million in contributions in 2024. While STV did not disclose its donors, it received $10.4 million–all of their funding–from Securing American Greatness, according to that organization’s filings. SAG raised $275 million in 2024, and the New York Times described it as Trump’s “main nonprofit.” Politico described it as “being run by Trump ally Taylor Budowich [...] Budowich also oversees the principal pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc.” All three organizations share the same treasurer and address in Beverly, MA, along with dozens of other Trump-aligned groups, including the Trump inaugural committee and the American Prosperity Alliance.
In other words, the efforts of the Nelk Boys and Send the Vote to reach young men in the 2024 election was entirely a creation of the Trump operation, not an organic or independent movement. This is a clear case of a candidate understanding the importance of upstream culture work and making sure that resources were made available to those who do that work.
Send the Vote Claimed to Reach 140 Million People with Influencers and 1.1 Million with Ads
After the election, Send the Vote claimed that their ad buying strategy targeted 1.1 million inactive, registered male voters between the ages of 18-34. STV claimed that there were 2 million visitors to their website, and 110,000 people looked up their voting locations. Fox reported, “Send the Vote reached more than 140 million people through influencers, nearly 1 million on streamed content, and nearly 7 million people through podcasts specifically, Fox Digital learned. Send the Vote ads were featured on other wildly popular podcasts, including on comedic shows KillTony, Theo Von, Tim Dillon, as well as the sports-oriented podcast ‘BS with Jake Paul,’ as well as viral TikTok celebrity Hailey Welch’s ‘Talk Tuah’ podcast.”
Send the Vote Was A Cash Cow for Shahidi
According to its filing, Send the Vote paid John Shahidi’s firm Shots Studios just under $2 million for “Placed Media: Podcasts, Licensing,” with another $8 million paid to Direct Persuasion Group. Shahidi, who had started in the music industry, created Shots to pair creators with advertisers. In addition to managing the Nelk Boys, Shahidi also manages Theo Von, whose interview with Trump was viewed as a major moment for Trump’s campaign. And their support for Trump has likely been good for business–Google Trends data shows that the only event in the last three years to drive more search for the Nelk Boys than when Trump invited them on his plane in October 2024 was their interview with Trump ally Benjamin Netanyahu. Shahidi has also tried to expand the Nelk Boys’ empire into consumer goods, which has been successful with its Happy Dad beverages, but less so in crypto, where they are currently being sued for fraud.
Progressives Need to Invest to Compete for Young Men’s Attention
While the data on the effectiveness of the Send the Vote effort is unclear, the lasting narrative it created that there was an organic groundswell of support for Trump by young men seems to have paid off. But it was an organized, institutional effort, one progressives needs to emulate in order to compete.
SAM was founded precisely as a counterweight to the right’s institutionalized effort to reach young men, which is why we recently conducted the largest survey of this cohort’s opinions and emotional drivers. These findings demand a new strategy: one that focuses on the need to engage young men upstream of politics and well before the next election.
This critical constituency is up for grabs in 2026, but getting to them requires a dedicated program to engage them early and often before the next election. Last mile tactics by Democratic candidates alone will not do the trick.