A Year After His Death, Charlie Kirk's Movement Is Bigger Than Ever

A year after Charlie Kirk's assassination, Turning Point USA has grown larger under the leadership of his widow, Erika Kirk. Chapter numbers, fundraising and political organizing have all expanded since his death.

By EEW Magazine Online News Editors

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, greets the crowd during the AmericaFest 2024 conference in Phoenix. (File photo: Cheney Orr/Reuters)

OREM, Utah — One year ago today, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University while doing the work that had defined much of his public life: standing before young people, fielding questions, defending his beliefs and making the case for conservative ideas.

Tonight, Turning Point USA returns to that same campus. The organization Kirk co-founded as an 18-year-old will gather at the UCCU Center for "Freedom Built to Last," a memorial marking one year since his assassination.

Turning Point did not fold after Kirk's death. Leadership passed to the person he had already chosen. Less than two weeks after the assassination, the organization's board unanimously elected his widow, Erika Kirk, as CEO and chair. The board said Charlie had told multiple executives before his death that this was what he wanted if something happened to him.

Charlie and Erika Kirk embrace backstage in a photo shared by Erika Kirk. (Photo credit: Erika Kirk/Facebook.)

Erika took on the role while grieving her husband's murder and raising their two young children. Days after the killing, she made clear she had no intention of letting his death slow the mission. "You have no idea what you've just unleashed across this entire country, and this world," she said in her first public remarks after the assassination.

A year later, there are numbers behind those words.

Turning Point USA now counts more than 3,500 high school chapters nationwide, up roughly 180 percent from a year ago, and more than 1,500 college chapters, up more than 60 percent, according to organization spokesman Andrew Kolvet. More than 1 million students are involved across those networks, the group says. In the weeks after Kirk's death, more than 120,000 students reached out asking to start a chapter.

Turning Point USA COO Justin Streiff said roughly two-thirds of the organization's current chapter leaders got involved only after Kirk was killed. The group held about 100 of its Kirk-inspired "Pick Up the Mic" campus events this spring and is aiming for roughly 400 this fall. The format Kirk made famous brings students together around a microphone to question, debate and defend ideas in public. The organization brought in more than $115 million in donations last year, its largest fundraising year on record, Streiff said.

Charlie Kirk tosses hats to the crowd before speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Photo: Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)

Kirk spent more than a decade building Turning Point from a campus organizing project into one of the most influential institutions in conservative youth politics. He did it through campus appearances, conferences, podcasts, social media and political organizing. Much of the organization ran through him personally, which made his death an open question for the institution he left behind.

Spokesman Andrew Kolvet told Fox News Digital that Erika Kirk, the wife who stood by Charlie’s side, was the only other person who understood the organization’s inner workings. "The fact that she stepped into that very difficult role in the time and the way and the manner in which she did was so incredibly important, because if you don't know the inner workings of Turning Point, you don't know the way that it's set up, and you don't know all the individual personalities.”

He continued, “I'm of the opinion that had she not stepped in when she did and how she did, that you could have seen the unraveling of Turning Point completely.”

Though many outside observers predicted the organization would fall apart without Charlie, Erika has said her husband was deliberate about building something that did not depend on him. Speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit in December, she said Charlie worked to shift the organization "from founder-led to vision-led."

As Turning Point expands its political operation into battleground states ahead of the 2026 midterms and 2028 election, the criminal case against the man accused of killing Charlie continues to move toward trial.

Tyler Robinson, 23, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and six other charges in the killing, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. A Utah judge ruled Sept. 1 that prosecutors presented enough evidence for the case to continue. The next hearing is set for Oct. 23.

Tonight at 6:30 p.m. Kirk’s memorial will be livestreamed on the organization's platforms.