Turning Point USA reports 'unprecedented expansion' year after Kirk's killing

Approval among Trump voters under 35 fell from 92% to 57%

Turning Point USA says it experienced what it called “unprecedented expansion” during the 2025-2026 school year, reporting more than a million involved students across 3,500 high school clubs and 1,500 college chapters in a fact sheet.

The growth followed an initial surge of interest among college and high school students seeking to start chapters after Charlie Kirk was fatally shot one year ago at Utah Valley University. NPR reported that his death was seen as a call to action from students to the upper ranks of the Republican Party.

Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet acknowledged that the organization faces “a confluence of challenges” but said “the organization is still growing in nearly every conceivable way,” describing that growth as “a testament to Charlie’s enduring legacy.”

“In many ways the challenges our students and chapters face have never been more obvious or pronounced, but so too are the opportunities,” Kolvet said.

Kirk founded Turning Point a little more than a decade before his death with the goal of getting more young people involved in conservative politics. He was killed at age 31.

Supporters have credited Kirk with gains that then-candidate Donald Trump made among young voters in the 2024 presidential election, a crucial bloc that helped propel Trump to a second term.

Kirk maintained close relationships with top White House officials during Trump’s second administration while continuing to engage with the Make America Great Again movement’s newly expanded youth coalition. NPR reported that for his followers, his influence meant their views had a direct pipeline to the president. For the administration, he was a trusted messenger on policy decisions, including those that divided the MAGA base, such as the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025.

Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has since taken over as Turning Point’s CEO. In her first public remarks, days after his death, she spoke about the momentum that followed the shooting.

“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea,” Erika Kirk said. “You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed across this entire country, and this world.”

Jacob York, 21, was at baseball practice when he learned Kirk had been shot. York, who attends Olivet Nazarene University, a small Christian school south of Chicago, said he broke down in tears while standing in the outfield and decided that night to start a Turning Point chapter on his campus.

“I feel like there [were] many of us who had that wake-up call,” York said. “I think I submitted the request to start a chapter six times. There were so many requests that it kept saying, ‘Oops, try again later.’”

Some young supporters described a more complicated picture after the initial surge. They told NPR they see an organization that has yet to fully coalesce around a new leader and is grappling with the same issue divisions causing friction across the Republican Party.

Dino Fantegrossi, 23, a recent University of Arkansas graduate, led his school’s Turning Point chapter for more than two years before breaking with the organization last spring. He founded Young American Revival, which he said aims to be “a positive vehicle for students to take out their frustrations in a manner that actually brings about change within our state.”

“Charlie Kirk got it. He spent all of his time on college campuses talking to people my age, whether he agreed or disagreed with them,” Fantegrossi said. “He knew — because he was so plugged in — what bugged young people, what needed to be addressed. There’s no one else that was quite at that level of plugged in.”

“One of the big problems that has happened since Charlie’s death is that I think a lot of the youth have kind of felt lost,” Fantegrossi said. “They’re not really sure how to channel their frustrations, and that oftentimes — when it’s not put in check or pointed in a positive direction — can manifest itself in some very nasty ways.”

NPR reported that many of Kirk’s followers have felt the absence of his direct connection with young people. Turning Point leaders vowed to continue holding campus visits in his place, but the organization shifted toward more formal events that largely moved away from direct debate and featured keynote speakers including Erika Kirk and Vice President Vance. The events drew mixed and, at times, lackluster turnout.

John Della Volpe, a Democratic pollster who has spent decades researching young Americans and observes and conducts focus groups with Generation Z voters, said Kirk’s death could be another factor fueling a growing belief among young people that they lack political agency.

“He was unique in terms of his connection to a not-insignificant number of younger people,” Della Volpe said.

“His name is mentioned on an ongoing basis, literally every single month. But it’s framed as ‘He was someone who understood me, who heard me,’” Della Volpe said. “People feel like he listened to them and he’s been taken from us. So therefore, why does it matter anymore?”

Kirk faced pushback from the left for comments disparaging immigrants and transgender people and questioning the qualifications and capabilities of women and Black Americans, NPR reported. He also amplified conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.

Kirk continued visiting campuses across the United States to debate his positions at “Prove Me Wrong” events. Those appearances were central to the image he cultivated as a defender of free speech, free markets and limited government. He was taking part in the same type of event when he was killed at Utah Valley University.

Turning Point is also trying to keep young conservatives engaged as many express dissatisfaction with party leaders. At the start of Trump’s second term, 92% of Trump voters under 35 approved of his job as president, according to Pew Research Center data cited by NPR. By late April 2026, that support had fallen to 57%.

Student organizers identified the Iran war and the administration’s relationship with Israel as major sources of tension. NPR reported that Generation Z and millennial Republicans were much less likely than older generations to hold favorable views on both topics.

Hazel Roberts, 18, a first-year student at Grand Canyon University who started a Turning Point chapter in high school, said those divisions underscored why Kirk’s leadership had mattered.

“That’s what Charlie loved about Turning Point. We could all have different perspectives and not hate each other for it, and we can talk about it. And since Charlie’s passing, there has been a lot of hate from the right,” Roberts said. “Charlie was the glue that held us together.”

Some student activists told NPR that divisions beyond policy disputes had made campus organizing more difficult. Alex BirdSong, 19, a junior at Georgia State University, joined his school’s Turning Point chapter after Kirk’s death and now serves as its president.

“The conspiracies revolving around Charlie Kirk’s assassination [have] really tanked the credibility of Turning Point,” BirdSong said, referring to a slew of unfounded claims made to millions online by right-wing influencers, namely podcaster Candace Owens, over the past year.

“We’ve had people come up to us who are Candace Owens fans and get mad at us for being Turning Point, and so that’s what the climate is,” BirdSong said. “It’s going to be a huge challenge for Turning Point and the right if, one, the right can’t unify and, two, if the [Trump] administration can’t get the controversies under wraps.”

BirdSong said he hoped to change how people viewed the organization during the school year.

Other student leaders said the combination of challenges had caused momentum to fade. Max Williams, 20, a junior who leads the Turning Point chapter at the University of Richmond, said interest in conservative organizations remained low despite rebounding after Kirk was shot.

“I would say the interest in conservative organizations is low right now, even if it did rebound when Charlie Kirk got shot,” Williams said. “I think that Charlie not being there, the Trump administration not being popular right now — I think that it is definitely slowed down a bit and maybe even is going in the opposite direction.”

Williams said part of him was not excited to return to campus organizing and that he had grown frustrated with Trump.

“Some of this stuff is just infuriating, and you can’t defend any of it. And I don’t even try anymore,” Williams said.

Williams said he planned to emphasize issues students care about rather than focus on Trump when speaking with students on campus. Without Kirk, NPR reported, that approach might not be as easy as it once was.