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By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and BILL BARROW, Associated Press
Charlie Kirk began plotting a way to mold young minds into conservatism at an age when he was still sorting out his own path. Looking to channel his political inclinations into action after a rejection from West Point, Kirk was 18 when he launched a grassroots organization from an Illinois garage that would grow alongside the rise of President Donald Trump and fuel the “Make America Great Again” movement.
Kirk admitted later he had “no money, no connections and no idea what I was doing” when he started Turning Point USA in 2012. But his rhetorical gifts for countering progressive ideas by inflaming cultural tensions and making provocative declarations instantly resonated with college audiences during the Obama years and Trump’s first presidency.
As video clips of his early campus appearances spread online, it helped him secure a steady stream of donations that transformed Turning Point into one of the country’s largest political organizations, attracting young people to star-studded gatherings and making it a presence at high schools and colleges around the country.
“No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump said on Wednesday after Kirk was assassinated while speaking at a college in Utah.
In the early stages, Kirk described his group as a student organization that advocated for free markets and limited government. He needled peers who bashed capitalism and backed presidential candidate and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders yet “shamelessly enjoy the fruits of the free market,” like Starbucks, Amazon and Netflix.
Over time, Turning Point began holding mass rallies that drew tens of thousands of young voters each year to hear top conservative leaders – Trump included – speaking on glitzy stages with massive screens, pyrotechnics and lighting shows befitting a stadium concert.
Alongside Turning Point’s growth, Kirk’s fame skyrocketed, and he leveraged his nonprofit, celebrity status and a successful podcast into considerable personal wealth.
It is not immediately clear who will lead Turning Point after Kirk’s death.
“You don’t replace a Charlie Kirk,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “He was unique.”
Turning Point spreads conservative ideas across college campuses
Kirk’s bread-and-butter remained anchored on college campuses.
His final appearance Wednesday at Utah Valley University was the opening event of his latest series, titled the “American Comeback Tour.”
In his college stops, Kirk would often sit beneath a tent, as he was when he was shot. He was often behind his “Prove Me Wrong” table, where he held forth.
He mainly drew young conservatives — many sporting “Make America Great Again” hats — who said they often felt unwelcome or out of place at school. And he had hundreds of Turning Point employees and volunteers there to recruit students into becoming GOP voters and activists themselves.
The real draw, however, was Kirk arguing with students. He seemed to relish jeers when he had a less friendly audience.
Kirk frequently repeated Trump’s false claims that former Vice President Kamala Harris was directly responsible for all immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally. He called George Floyd, a Black man whose death by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national debate over racial injustice, a “scumbag.”
He espoused culturally conservative views, advocating for gun rights, condemning abortion, holding up women as wives and mothers — and men as heads of households. And he mastered the art of the “what about?” retort, turning questions back on progressives and liberals who challenged him.
Kirk was sometimes kept away from schools. In 2018, Turning Point said a Chicago university denied requests for him to speak on their campus citing safety concerns, and a Florida high school would not allow him to speak to students two months after a teenager with an assault rifle had killed 17 people there.
Tommy Richardson, a 36-year-old from Mesa, Arizona, arrived at the Turning Point headquarters after Kirk’s death was announced. He praised Kirk as a charismatic leader who helped shape his generation of conservatives and “was a champion of everything we believe.”
“That’s a huge legacy that will have repercussions for the political landscape for decades to come,” he said.
Kirk helped mobilize youth for Trump
In 2024, Kirk used his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to praise Trump as an economic master and argue that Gen Z voters could not afford another Democratic administration.
“Democrats have given hundreds of billions of dollars to illegals and foreign nations, while Gen Z has to pinch pennies just so that they can never own a home, never marry, and work until they die, childless,” he said.
Speaking directly to his generation, the multimillionaire influencer said, “You don’t have to stay poor. You don’t have to accept being worse off than your parents. You don’t have to support leaders who lied to you and took advantage of you for your vote.”
According to AP VoteCast, a survey of the 2024 electorate, 47% of voters aged 18-29 opted for Trump, while 51% went for Harris. But that was a much narrower gap than in 2020, when Joe Biden outpaced Trump 61% to 36%.
“I want to express my tremendous gratitude to Charlie Kirk. He’s really an amazing guy. Amazing guy. And his whole staff for their relentless efforts to achieve this very historic victory,” Trump said at a Turning Point gathering in Arizona last December.
Vice President JD Vance said Kirk’s influence continued past the inauguration.
“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance said on X late Wednesday. “He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”
Young conservatives call him mentor and inspiration
Several young politicians and figures credit Kirk with inspiring or boosting their public careers.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he was one of the first “to believe in me.” When she ran for Congress from New Hampshire in 2022, Kirk endorsed her in the Republican primary. She lost the general election.
Kirk “believed in the potential and promise of young people,” she said. “He inspired millions of them to get involved in politics and fight for our nation’s conservative values.”
Vance said Kirk first reached out through a private message on Twitter after a Fox News appearance in 2017 when he was an author and not a politician. They became friends, and Kirk was one of the first people Vance called when he thought of running for the U.S. Senate in early 2021. Kirk introduced him to people who eventually ran his campaign — and to Donald Trump Jr.
“Don took a call from me because Charlie asked him too,” Vance posted on X.
Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican congresswoman, said Kirk recruited her as national Hispanic outreach director when she was planning to attend medical school.
“He’s part of the reason I’m in office right now,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said of Kirk from outside the Capitol Wednesday.
Kennedy Peterson, 20, was among the young people who came to Turning Point headquarters after Kirk’s death was announced Wednesday.
“From the day that he started with the Campus Victory Project, I think that his intentions were to create a world that he thought was better than what we have now,” Peterson said.
Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Washington, and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press
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