Who was Charlie Kirk? His legacy and the rise of Turning Point USA

PHOENIX (KPHO/AP/Gray News) - Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, died after being shot on Wednesday at an event at Utah Valley University.

The shooting comes amid a spike in political violence seen in the United States.

EN ESPAÑOL | Muere el activista conservador Charlie Kirk tras ser baleado en acto universitario

Kirk had long focused on energizing young conservatives with speaking events like the one he was at in Utah.

Who was Charlie Kirk?

The 31-year-old had launched his organization, Turning Point USA, in 2012, targeting younger people and venturing onto liberal-leaning college campuses where many GOP activists were nervous to tread.

A backer of Trump during the president’s initial 2016 run, Kirk took Turning Point from one of a constellation of well-funded conservative groups to the center of the right-of-center universe.

Turning Point’s political wing helped run get-out-the-vote for Trump’s 2024 campaign, trying to energize disaffected conservatives who rarely vote.

Trump won Arizona, where Turning Point is headquartered, by five percentage points after narrowly losing it in 2020.

Kirk argued for a new conservatism that advocated for freedom of speech, challenging tech, the media and centering working-class Americans beyond the nation’s capital.

What are Kirk’s ties to Arizona?

Turning Point USA’s national headquarters is in downtown Phoenix and Kirk lived in the Phoenix area.

In 2024, real estate bloggers reported that the commentator had listed his six-bed, six-bath home for $6.495 million in the upscale Silverleaf community in north Scottsdale. Records revealed it was sold earlier this year.

Additionally, Kirk was known for having close ties with leading Arizona GOP figures, including state Sen. Jake Hoffman and Tyler Bowyer.

Kirk also had three high-end properties, all worth over $1 million, as well as a nearby apartment and a beachside condo on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Kirk showed off an apocalyptic style in his popular podcast, radio show and on the campaign trail.

During an appearance with Trump in Georgia last fall, he said that Democrats “stand for everything God hates.” Kirk called the Trump vs. Kamala Harris choice “a spiritual battle.”

“This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way,” Kirk told the 10,000 or so Georgians, who at one point joined Kirk in a deafening chant of “Christ is King! Christ is King!”

Kirk was a regular presence on college campuses. Last year, for the social media program “Surrounded,” he faced off against 20 liberal college students to defend his viewpoints, including that abortion is murder and should be illegal.

Kirk was married to podcaster Erika Frantzve, who was also a former Miss Arizona USA. They have two young children.

In 2021, Turning Point sponsored a wedding reception for Kirk and his wife at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess luxury hotel, which was also billed as a ninth anniversary celebration and fundraiser for the organization, according to an invitation obtained by The Associated Press.

History of Turning Point USA

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by a then-18-year-old Kirk and William Montgomery, a Tea Party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government.

It was not an immediate success. But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers.

Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president.

Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences, which are known for their flamboyant events that often feature strobe lighting and pyrotechnics.

The organization claims more than 250,000 student members across more than a dozen schools in Arizona and chapters in all of the state’s major universities.