When Charlie Kirk was assassinated at 31, he left behind an organization that had helped young conservatives find their voices and, for some, launch careers in media and activism. One year later, those who worked closely with him say they are carrying forward the model he built, continuing to recruit and mentor college students and young activists.
“I don’t think anybody can replace Charlie,” Turning Point USA chief of staff Michael McCoy, who also worked as Kirk’s chief of staff, told Fox News Digital. “I think there’s a massive void that was left behind in his absence.”
Kirk was shot and killed while holding an event at Utah Valley University. The TPUSA founder and CEO was known for his “Prove Me Wrong” events, during which he would invite people to debate him and ask questions. His Sept. 10, 2025, event where he was murdered was part of his “American Comeback Tour.”
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Prior to Kirk’s assassination, TPUSA had 410 college chapters registered for the 2025-2026 school year. After Kirk was murdered, that number grew to 1,095. The organization also saw its Club America chapters, aimed at high schoolers, grow substantially. Before Sept. 10, 2025, there were 454 Club America chapters, and after Kirk’s assassination, the number grew to 3,102. The growth in the organization exemplified one of Kirk’s main goals, which was to develop young conservative voices.
“The Charlie Kirk Show” executive producer Andrew Kolvet remembered Kirk as being “intentional” when building a bench of activists.
“He wanted to use that as sort of like the farm system for voices that could find their footing, find their way, and really, the cream would rise to the top,” Kolvet told Fox News Digital.
Kolvet pointed to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt as examples of Turning Point alumni who went on to hold high-profile public roles.
Isabel Brown, a former Turning Point USA staffer who now hosts “The Isabel Brown Show” at The Daily Wire, said Kirk helped steer her from a planned career as a trauma surgeon toward activism and conservative media.
Brown first encountered Turning Point as a college student and later helped Kirk plan an event at Colorado State University, her alma mater, an experience that cemented her interest in the work.
“I was having so much darn fun planning this event and many others that we would go on to put on for our campus that Charlie said, ‘I don’t think you’re meant to work in a fluorescently lit hospital for the rest of your life. I think you are supposed to do something a little bit different,’” Brown recalled.
Brown went on to work for TPUSA, becoming one of the young conservative media voices shaped by Kirk’s organization.
Brown’s experiences with Kirk in the early days of TPUSA reflected his approach to young conservatives, according to those who worked with him. Rather than simply looking to build an audience for the sake of having one, they said, Kirk sought out students individually and encouraged those in whom he saw potential.
“He was not just trying to gain a whole swath of numbers of college students or build this 30,000-foot-scale army that could take on the political machine,” Brown said. “He was interested in the individual student sitting in front of him, and he was that way until the day that he died.”
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Kolvet said Kirk’s ability to connect with young conservatives came from his willingness to engage with them without trying to imitate aspects of culture that didn’t speak to him.
“What made Charlie different when it came to reaching young people was that he just rejected all of the pop culture stuff. He never pandered to them,” Kolvet said. “He was just himself.”
Blake Neff, a producer on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” said Kirk’s influence online was rooted in his interactions with people in real life.
“Charlie very much lived in the real world. He was a social media celebrity, but he was not a social-media inhabitant. He was not obsessed constantly with what was getting what was getting views,” Neff said, adding that to Kirk the social media success was “almost a side effect of the work he did.”
Neff noted that Kirk not only went to college campuses across the country, but also was engaged in local and national politics. The TPUSA CEO and founder would also frequently travel to meet voters, donors and “different Americans in different walks of life,” according to Neff.
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McCoy said Kirk’s success reaching Gen Z stemmed from his “authenticity and consistency.”
“Gen Z has this ability to kind of sniff out who’s being authentic and who’s not, and we really aren’t a generation that likes to be pandered to,” McCoy, a Gen Zer, said to Fox News Digital. “We don’t like it when people show up to try to speak the lingo or kind of participate in the culture of Gen Z because we can kind of see right through that. But Charlie, he showed up with a message that he knew young people ought to hear, not that we wanted to hear oftentimes, and he was rewarded for it.”
For McCoy, Kirk’s influence can be seen not only through the personalities that have emerged from TPUSA, but also in the students who seek to model their activism after Kirk’s.
“Charlie was kind of the head figure for so many of our students at Turning Point USA because they saw him, and they copied him by going on college campuses and kind of doing a micro version of what he was doing, talking to students, tabling, handing out stickers and buttons and rally signs and talking about conservative principles,” McCoy said.
Kolvet said that students have told him that they try to emulate Kirk’s courage and willingness to face any audience, including hostile ones.
“He was so bold. He was a lion for the Christian faith. He held nothing back. He didn’t mince words. He didn’t cower. He would go full bore right into the fray. He would [go] right into places where, you know, we were most not wanted,” Kolvet told Fox News Digital. “He was willing to be exactly who he was and speak truth in any context.”
