One year ago today, on September 10 at 12:23 pm, everything changed for Turning Point USA. It was at that exact moment its founder Charlie Kirk was as he spoke assassinated by a lone gunman atop a roof across the quad of Utah Valley University.
Everything changed also for Kirk’s widow, his two children, his parents, his sister, and anyone who had an intimate relationship with him, some of whom were there by his side that day.
But in other ways, nothing has changed for the organization. Nothing changed for the culture war Kirk organized his brand to win. It rages on, now targeting a vague “they” who Turning Point and its allies say orchestrated and celebrated his death.
Turning Point remains the most powerful conservative millennial-run organization, buoyed by grief and millions in new money, hundreds of new chapters, and ongoing political and cultural support from the White House to Congress to statehouses and governors’ mansions around the nation. It has not merely survived the worst day of its existence. It has not merely outlasted the conspiracy-backed challenge from former staffer Candace Owens. It has thrived, grounded in a martyrdom it helped to define.
The practical means of running such an organization has continued apace. In the year since Kirk has died, Turning Point has continued its usual campus tours but also added more. Its staff has continued Kirk’s popular broadcast, though it has been removed from its high profile radio slots. It has participated in campaigns, endorsed candidates, and got an untold number of people to register to vote because that is what Charlie wanted.
Charlie also wanted his wife and now widow Erika Kirk to be CEO. A few months ago she had her political coming out party. Initially doing events and interviews she said were already on her husband’s calendar and others that allowed her to avoid the battlefield of politics as a widow, she filled her spring and summer schedule with much more of the culture war. That coming out moment was her speech at a Trump rally in Arizona in April. She also gave the commencement speech at Charlie’s lone endorsed college, a bastion of conservative Christianity in Michigan. In June she gave her annual motherhood and maternity speech to the Turning Point women’s summit. She also attended the White House Correspondents Dinner, the annual fundraiser for the “liberal media” her husband loathed, to confront those same people. Sadly the shooting at that event forced her to revisit the events of September 10. She posted afterwards she was taking a few days off. All these point to both a still traumatized person and an expanding cultural critique from Erika Kirk.
This article will use the last 365 days to show why Turning Point is far from being stymied, far from being replaced. It is here to stay. And so its project to Christianize America and destroy our pluralistic democracy will continue.
That project to retake American culture centers on seven specific arenas. Looking at these areas with a before and after lens - before the assassination and now after a year - offers not only a short term assessment of Turning Point’s ability to overcome the death of its leader but a judgment on what I believe is Turning Point’s long term aim: define itself as the landing spot for MAGA in a post-Trump world, whenever that may come to fruition. Time magazine reported in July that “it’s clear in the data and on-the-ground conversations with younger conservatives that Trump might not be building a machine that he could easily transfer to the next MAGA warrior, however.” Turning Point is in fact building that machine. The last year proves that.
Business
Let’s begin with the money. As far as public documents go, each summer non-profits file their Form 990 tax returns for the previous year. The 2025 Turning Point return for the fiscal year that ended June 30 (filed May 15 2026) obviously does not give us insight into how fundraising and budget was affected by Charlie Kirk’s death. But the filing does show the tremendous growth of the organization on the verge of losing its leader.
Turning Point reported $115 million in revenue. For context its 2024 revenue was $85 million. The legally separate Turning Point Action as a 501(c)4 took in $35 million in 2025 and spent more than $40 million according to tax records.
In addition, Turning Point USA gave more than $2 million to Turning Point PAC in 2024. That PAC took in more than $7 million during the last two years. It took in more than 1,000 donations.
In the last year Turning Point Action expanded its usual political operations of endorsements, canvassing, and events that were a big part of Trump’s win in 2024. After Kirk’s death it took on three new and unique political campaigns discussed later in the section on government. It spent untold millions on these campaigns, much of that money likely coming post-Kirk.
A key sign that business was booming for Turning Point before the assassination was the $10 million donation the organization received in the summer of 2025 from Nelda and Karl Buckman, the largest in the organization’s history. Turning Point renamed its Arizona headquarters for the donors in December.
Post-Kirk assassination money poured in.
Multiple accounts on GiveSendGo were set up to give directly to Erika. One has as of June $2.6 million. Another fund supported by Tucker Carlson has almost $5.5 million. That one was still getting donations as of June. It’s unclear what has or will happen to that money. Charlie for years donated his Turning Point salary ($280,000 in 2025) back to the organization because he had other millions. Will Erika do the same with this money?
One analysis of private foundation giving post-Kirk showed this not surprising spike: “Donations from the very wealthy to (Turning Point) jumped 92% from Kirk’s death through the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period a year prior. Since Kirk’s death, Turning Point USA has received $899,516 from foundations, compared to the mid-September through March period a year earlier, which saw $468,775 in gifts.”
As one can see with $115 million in donations, private foundation giving is a small part of the Turning Point pie. The rest comes from average Americans. And Turning Point has expanded its roster for donors.
Turning Point started what seemingly was a massive individual donor recruitment campaign in June. Solicitation letters from Erika appeared on social media. Some people were aghast to get one, wondering how they got on the list. Others sent off money.
All this new money spurred expansion inside the organization.
Education
In the wake of the assassination, the organization’s clubs in high schools and colleges expanded dramatically. That donation solicitation letter from Erika noted Turning Point has now 5,000 high school and college chapters. (Its 2025 tax records say it “organized and chartered” more than 2100 chapters in high school and colleges and “active” on more than 4,000 campuses.)
Of those, about 3500 are high school chapters. In February the governor of Nebraska - announcing his state’s desire to put a chapter in every high school in the state like more than ten governors during the last year - claimed Turning Point was in 13 percent of all US high schools.
For context, Turning Point’s 2024 tax filing states the organization had 1,873 chapters. It also states that the organization “operates” on 3,300 campuses.
Those chapters are supported by more than 400 employees, many of whom are field representatives who have a portfolio of chapters they oversee. During the summer Turning Point was on a hiring spree for these reps.
Erika also spent part of the spring appearing at Turning Point high school chapters and as part of the Department of Education’s the U.S. Department of Education’s “History Rocks! Trail to Independence” tour. Turning Point was a partner of the tour. She also spoke at the organization’s annual educator’s summit in June.
Turning Point itself put on two campus tours. One was a mirror of Kirk’s tent debates which the organization labeled a “pass the mic” tour where lesser known Turning Point speakers debated students.
Second was a mirror of Kirk too though in less intimate arenas, not under a tent. Charlie was killed on the opening leg of this fall tour and the rest of the stops became part memorial, part culture war amid large audiences. For example an event featuring JD Vance and Erika Kirk at Ole Miss in October filled a 10,000 person pavilion.
The stops were not without issues. Erika’s appearance at the University of Georgia in April with Vice President JD Vance was cancelled at the last minute due to threats to her safety. Protests dogged some of the events as did optics of poor attendance at some locations. For example the UGA event had about 1200 attendees in a 7,000 capacity arena. The chapter president resigned in the wake of the event citing “dishonesty” from the organization.
A striking absence in the last year of Turning Point’s propaganda machine must be noted. Turning Point’s Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist websites have been down for months due to “maintenance.” Though the links remain on the TPUSA Students page. If these efforts officially go away they would not be a sign of Turning Point’s receding. Instead the organization leaving these behind would be a sign of its maturity, in an amoral sense. Some might argue the organization has come to see those lists as contradictory to its vision of civil debate that so many said was Charlie Kirk’s work. There are many reasons to doubt that. A simpler reason for their absence is likely: the organization simply doesn’t need the lists anymore. And that is saying something since the list of professors is what put Turning Point in the national conversation in 2016, just four years into its life. (Disclosure: I was one of the original professors on the list.)
Government
Turning Point remains a juggernaut in electoral campaigns though there are signs it remains deeply divisive outside the GOP.
Over the last year, Turning Point Action endorsed many candidates in GOP primaries for federal and state offices. Many of those were safe bets because they had unknown or no challengers. So many won.
Others aimed to take down leaders in GOP seats. For example the large majority of Turning Point candidates who ran to oust Indiana GOP state lawmakers who didn’t support President Trump’s demand for off-cycle redistricting won.
In what seems like a first, Turning Point’s endorsed candidate for Iowa governor beat the Trump endorsed candidate. In Georgia a Turning Point endorsed candidate for governor also endorsed by Trump lost in the GOP primary to a first time candidate and billionaire who poured millions of his own money into the campaign.
November may reveal a different win-loss record as Turning Point and its endorsements face the general electorate. In 2024 while it helped Trump win, it was underwater in its endorsements winning in the general election.
Turning Point also expanded its electoral campaigns with three unique political efforts.
One was to recall a GOP city council member in Mesa, Arizona who had supported Kamala Harris. That effort was successful. While the vote didn’t take place until November, the recall effort was one of the last campaigns Kirk was directly involved in before his death. It was also then an immediate test of Turning Point’s ability to function and win without him. It passed that test.
The second was to organize Utah voters against a court-imposed electoral map that could yield a seat in Congress for Democrats. Turning Point and other out-of-state groups gathered signatures on petitions to repeal the proposition that led to the new maps. If victorious, the GOP dominated state Legislature could have repealed the new maps.
But the massive effort failed in March after thousands of signers had removed their signatures after complaints of fraud. That “dropped the effort below its required signature threshold for the question to go before voters,” according to media reports. While the effort failed, Turning Point didn’t get the overall blame.
The third was the election for the board of the largest utility in Arizona. Normally a quiet race with low turnout, the campaign became a referendum on Turning Point in Arizona because it put its brand on the line for candidates. And it lost massively.
Turning Point sought to “prevent a clean energy majority on the board, but only managed to hold on to the board’s president and vice president seats and two of the seven other board seats up for grabs this year,” according to media reports. According to one Arizona political expert: “Turning Point became the issue, and that turned out gobs of people who have never voted in an SRP election ever.” One of the organizers of the clean energy campaign agreed: “There is absolutely no doubt that Turning Point’s investment and involvement and the media coverage of their involvement raised the salience and awareness far beyond what we were doing. I do think it backfired,” Charlie Fisher told a Volts podcast.
One can’t forget also the hundreds of people who lost their jobs, many in government, after posting negative comments about Charlie and his death. Many were targeted by the Turning Point partner, Libs of Tik Tok. Those who have sued have won settlements. In June a University of Tennessee professor got $1.9 million.
And also Turning Point’s cultural power can be seen in the cancellation of the commencement speaker at the university where Kirk was killed. The speaker, public historian Sharon McMahon, specifically called out the pressure campaign led by Turning Point. The Salt Lake Tribune called out the hypocrisy from Kirk supporters who also say they support free speech.
Religion
From the outset Turning Point and its allies sought to frame Charlie as a martyr. Erika told a meeting of pastors in April that her husband was killed for preaching the gospel.
Charlie was framed as akin to MLK, a man Kirk attacked regularly. Others called him “perhaps the closest thing to Socrates in the American public square. The leftist intellectuals who sneered at him…would guffaw at the parallel, but it is no less true. He argued—amiably, fairly, relentlessly—until they couldn’t stand it any longer. And like Socrates, they had him killed.” He was also called a martyr for free speech.
Those honorifics were echoed in songs, memes, and what became known as Kirkifacation or Kirkslop - the most interesting being AI generated Kirks as heroes battling evil. The short film “Charlie Kirk: American Martyr” came out in July.
All that content was also met with equally negative content from disturbing Kirk fountain “heads” with water coming from the neck, jokes about his silence on issues of the day, and of course reposts of quotes by him combined with accusations of racism or sexism.
The martyrdom was clear at the massive memorial put on in Arizona by Turning Point ten days after Kirk’s death. By December at the organization’s annual winter confab Turning Point put his name and image and likeness everywhere in the convention hall. Attendees could take a selfie under a replica of the tent he was shot under. Posters, buttons, and other visual aids all purported to make Charlie’s wishes clear.
Over time, one observer wrote in May, Kirk though became “a slogan, a rhetorical figure, a cipher for a much larger religio-political battle.” The irony… “is that while Charlie Kirk is elevated to martyr status, he is at the same time reduced to a literary and rhetorical construct.”
An implicit call to martyrdom was part of the theological basis for Turning Point’s year-long tour called Make Heaven Crowded. While the title implies evangelism, in the context of Kirk’s assassination, it also gives a sense of death, instant or in the future. Many commentators who espoused Kirk’s martyrdom talked about him instantly being in the presence of God in heaven, his soul making it more crowded.
Erika took that martyrdom to the public with repeated statements about the vague “they” who had played some role in the targeting of her husband if not encouraging of his death. She announced in that fundraising call that Turning Point now had more than 10,000 new church partners. (Its 2025 tax records say Turning Point Faith had 1770 church partners and trained more than 5,000 pastors.)
It’s unclear what partnership means in this context. A map on the TPUSA Faith website shows hundreds of churches. Turning Point’s spring pastors summit in Dallas and one in California in August showed the kind of people it wants to promote - largely charismatic in theology, mostly young with large social media platforms. Another summit is scheduled for Detroit, a new location, in September.
Family
At the Turning Point Women’s Leadership Summit in June attendees heard a lot about the dangers of feminism. This has been a traditional topic for the decade-old event and also a topic for social and religious conservatives even longer.
But since the death of Charlie Kirk, Turning Point has refined its message to women in light of Erika becoming CEO. While she had a significant work history before marrying Charlie, since then she has worked behind the scenes as her family has grown. As the new CEO she has sparked criticism of Turning Point’s negative messages about women and careers. In other words, how can a female CEO of a national conservative political and cultural organization tell women to stay at home?
This year the summit defined itself as empowering women to “explore how her choices, goals, and actions can reflect confidence and integrity in every role she embraces, whether at home, in her career, or in her community.” Whereas last year’s theme was “welcome home.” Charlie said college was a scam and pushed young women to get their “MRS” degree. Erika softened the blow of comments like that in a panel session with her husband. His absence meant no blow to soften, though.
If one scans pictures of Turning Point chapters on college campuses and in high schools, one usually sees more women. In December Turning Point’s annual event in Florida called AmFest had a majority of female attendees. All this may not be surprising as women have been the majority on college campuses for years.
But post-Kirk Turning Point has strengthened its already well established outreach to women. Its merchandise often depicts female models more for example.
That said, the organization is clearly not giving up on men. It’s having a men’s summit called Invictus in October.
Its newest expansion started in the spring and targets groups heavily populated by men including veterans and first responders.
The organization began hiring regional field representatives for what it’s calling TPUSA Communities, a nationwide network of city chapters that aim to “equip everyday Americans—including families, young professionals, and veterans and first responders—to defend their values and create real impact where they live.”
In many ways these new community chapters are another answer to the ongoing question of what to do with Turning Point alumni. (There is an alumni association but it’s more of a glorified networking group). With the expansion into churches Turning Point could funnel its acolytes to aligned congregations. But there was no guarantee they would stay engaged politically. Now Turning Point is making sure its alumni stay in the fold, fully engaged in the mixing of faith and politics, fully engaged in a Turning Point arm.
This expansion is creating its own lane, scaling up and expanding (perhaps even replacing) what local GOP chapters do, and adding its own unique Christian Nationalism vibe. It’s for the larger, more white base of Turning Point but based on the kind of relationship building done by its minority outreach effort called RISE. The person in charge of that was promoted to be in charge of the larger community effort.
And let’s not forget Turning Point has met a lot of “everyday Americans” chasing their ballots. This is a clear path for them to stay linked to Turning Point. In short this commitment effort tries to sustain the political engagement through a call to family values beyond any one election cycle. It’s a pipeline for the army needed for a sustained culture war no matter who is in power.
That pipeline was defined clearly in an interview with Charlie Kirk published three days before his death. That profile by the Desert News, an outlet based in Utah, is solid evidence how Turning Point indeed is aiming at the seven cultural areas. Kirk also stressed the pipeline of indoctrination Turning Point is building: “From 4 to 84, you could be involved with some Turning Point project. We are creating a full life cycle of involvement and engagement for someone that wants to save their country.”
Media
Erika said she attended the White House Correspondents Dinner to confront the media she blames for dehumanizing her and spreading lies about her husband’s death. It’s unclear how much confrontation or even conversation happened before the shooting though she did state she met one reporter. But attending an event honoring an institution her husband despised for the very reason to tell them that truth shows a culture war side of the new CEO that has become clear in her media appearances over the last few months.
While pre-assassination Erika’s social media posts were usually simple Bible verses and promotions for her appearances, over the summer Erika began to chime in on the culture war issues of the day. See here her defending the UFC fight at the White House. She said Democrats as elites despised the White House returning to the “people’s house.” This is two months after her post-Correspondents Dinner statement that included a call to unite Americans. In that statement she also decried the “systemic indoctrination and radicalization of our own citizens,” a bigger problem to her than illegal immigration. Not surprisingly in June she knocked on doors canvassing with GOP candidate for Arizona governor, Andy Biggs, who aligns with Turning Point’s anti-immigrant ideology.
Turning Point’s media arm Frontlines expanded in the last year, hiring more correspondents. In February the organization announced a college student content creation initiative. On its YouTube page the Charlie Kirk videos have millions of views since the assassination. Turning Point’s Cultural Apothecary with Alex Clark averages 10-15,000 views, though other platforms like TikTok likely garner larger audiences.
Turning Point has spent considerable time over the last year on social media and in private responding to the media sensation that is Candace Owens. Staffers with the organization specifically tagged and named her in posts about the evidence presented in a July preliminary hearing for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk. Some directly responded to her responses and new conspiracies across the week-long hearing as evidence from video to DNA to texts mounted against Tyler Robinson.
It’s hard to judge how successful that effort is if the standard is stopping Owens. She has continued spreading conspiracy theories about Charlie’s death, Erika’s past, and other topics. The head of Charlie’s security team that day in Utah sued Owens for defamation in April. Erika and Candace had an hours-long meeting in the fall which didn’t change the dynamic between the former staffer and the organization. While Turning Point has not sued Owens, it has sent cease-and-desist letters to her and an owner of a large social media account who has spread similar conspiracies to those Owens airs on her daily show.
In her CBS town hall in December Erika Kirk made an implicit call for Owens to stop spreading conspiracies. Up to that week in July Turning Point chose to refrain from public interaction with Owens, aside from the occasional reply on social media to Owens from a Turning Point staffer like Clark. It appeared Turning Point found that engagement takes away from telling its own story. Except for the occasional moment like a hearing. It is that story that will define the organization in the future.
Entertainment
Part of the reason Turning Point announced its own Super Bowl Halftime Show less than a month after Charlie Kirk’s death was not merely to counter what it saw as an unAmerican star the NFL chose for its own show. Turning Point also wanted to capitalize on the massive audience it got at Kirk’s hours-long televised memorial service ten days after the assassination.
It didn’t matter that the singers who were eventually announced for the show were either unknown or past their prime to most of America. Turning Point wasn’t aiming for most of America.
The majority of the 20 million who turned in to the memorial were already implicitly aligned with Turning Point in some manner and likely saw Kirk’s death as a reason to engage explicitly. Turning Point got a healthy slice of that audience with 6 million viewing the pre-recorded Super Bowl set. This helped Turning Point to define itself as not only a minority under persecution as it has done for years but counter-cultural at a moment of significant cultural significance.
That same counter-cultural vibe was behind the organization’s sponsorship of the UFC fight at the White House. The fight was criticized for being below the dignity of the White House but also implicitly as “low culture,” thus allowing Turning Point to present itself against “elites.” This also seems to be the thinking behind a Turning Point chapter sponsoring NASCAR drivers in the July 5th Chicago road race.
There has always been a racial element to the culture war of Turning Point. The call to save Western civilization and the more explicit “war on white people” Charlie Kirk described are part of a larger attack on multiculturalism in America. But Turning Point has shown it will esteem non-whites, though on its own terms. Those have been in the past economic terms, platforming minorities who embrace self-sufficiency and capitalistic entrepreneurship. But in the last year it praised and offered its platform to rapper Nicki Minjah as she has embraced Trump. She was interviewed by Erika Kirk at America Fest, Turning Point’s winter gathering in December. This came after consistent criticism by Charlie Kirk over the years about Minjah’s sexually explicit lyrics.
Minjah’s political conversion may not have had anything to do with Turning Point. Minjah didn’t say she was persuaded by any specific Turning Point effort. But to reveal her conversion at a Turning Point event shows the cultural power Turning Point has and will continue to have within the core base of MAGA.
The Future
All the first missed holidays and celebrations have come and gone now for Erika and the extended Kirk family. Amid that, Turning Point through its new CEO has tried to fashion itself a movement built on the charismatic vision of its founder and now energized and motivated by its legion of alumni and acolytes. And the millions in donations a single death has inspired.
Where does Turning Point go from here? What will it look like or what might its influence be in a year? In five? In 20?
The midterms are always tough on the party in power. If the predictions hold and the GOP loses either chamber in Congress, will Turning Point take the blame? It has shown in the past an ability to pivot from holding power to attacking power. On the other hand, if the predictions don’t hold or are underwhelming, Turning Point sets up itself to be the engine behind a Vance 2028 ticket. A victory there assures its political future.
Aside from politics, what makes Turning Point’s cultural efforts sustainable for the long term is that it has arms in all seven areas. If one falters or for example an election season isn’t successful, it can reframe the others as an answer to persecution.
Its playbook has been made clear since Charlie organized Turning Point around the seven areas of cultural influence. Erika has said her husband’s playbook is the future.
But the future also depends on the ability of Turning Point to turn from memories to dreams, invoking Charlie not in remembrance of the past but as a kind of teacher of the future, if not a savior of a kind of America that may indeed prevail. All martyrs die not knowing they will be martyrs. They are made martyrs by the movement, for the movement. Turning Point is a year into that rhetorical construction.
Its future also depends on the elements of American democracy Turning Point is seeking to erase. Protests at every major Turning Point event will continue for the foreseeable future. And there are now at least three youth oriented groups on the left specifically created to counter Turning Point. The organization has bet its future on its pipeline. America’s future will depend on how successful that project becomes.
Matthew Boedy has written for many publications and authored three books. He’s appeared on CNN and MSNBC and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other media outlets.
He has been a leader in faculty organizing since 2020 as president of the Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors, a national higher education advocacy group.
He completed his Ph.D. in English in 2015 at the University of South Carolina where he also received in 2010 a master’s in creative writing. He most prizes his bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2001 from the University of Florida and his work at the campus newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator.
He is a full professor of rhetoric at the University of North Georgia. He researches and writes about religious rhetoric, particularly in the last few years about the rise of Christian Nationalism.
He was once a crime reporter and high school teacher. He resides with his wife and two daughters in Gainesville, Georgia.
He can be reached on social media under @matthewboedy or at inbox at matthewboedy dot com
Turning Point has turned into a grifting zionist organization since CK's mic blew apart his chest. I'm sure Ck is rolling over in his grave looking at what TPUSA has turned into. I would advise you to be on the look out for a job as TPUSA won't be around much longer.