Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old activist, was shot during an event at a Utah college on Wednesday. He embodies the fierce, populist brand of conservatism that has come to define the Republican Party in the era of President Donald Trump.
For a long time, Kirk has been dedicated to rallying young conservatives through speaking engagements like the one at Utah Valley University where the incident took place. He founded his organization, Turning Point USA, in 2012, focusing on young people and attending liberal-leaning college campuses where many GOP supporters were hesitant to go.
A supporter of Trump since his 2016 campaign, Kirk transformed Turning Point from one of many well-funded conservative groups to a pivotal player in the right-wing sphere.
Turning Point’s political branch contributed to voter mobilization for Trump’s 2024 campaign, aiming to invigorate apathetic conservatives who seldom vote. Trump secured Arizona, the home base of Turning Point, by a five-point margin after losing it narrowly in 2020. The organization is known for its extravagant events, often featuring dazzling lights and pyrotechnics, and claims a membership of over 250,000 students.
Kirk displays a dramatic style on his widely-followed podcast, radio show, and during campaign appearances. At an event with Trump in Georgia last fall, he declared that Democrats “stand for everything God hates,” remarking that the Trump versus Kamala Harris election was “a spiritual battle.”
“This is a Christian state. I hope it remains that way,” Kirk expressed to approximately 10,000 Georgians, who at one point echoed Kirk in a resonating chant of “Christ is King! Christ is King!”
Kirk has also remained 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, who is married with two young children, has remained a regular presence on college campuses.
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.
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