Why Dems Don’t Have Their Own Charlie Kirk Network
The conservative activist built a political empire before he was assassinated at 31. Why haven’t his opponents built one themselves?
TWELVE DAYS AGO, California Gov. Gavin Newsom stood in a high school gymnasium to announce a new initiative aimed at addressing the “epidemic of loneliness” among young men. It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to Charlie Kirk, who had been assassinated just six days before.
“I recognized his influence, not just in the last election, [but in] how many young men and boys heard the bell and answered the bell, in terms of organizing on campuses,” Newsom said, explaining why he’d invited Kirk to be the first guest on his new podcast show when it launched back in March. “My party needs to recognize what [Kirk had] achieved in this movement.”
Since Kirk’s assassination, Democrats have publicly grappled with what his killing says about political violence in America. But as Newsom’s comments demonstrate, they’ve also been forced to contend with Kirk’s political legacy. Kirk often made noxious and offensive comments about his political opponents, but the organizations he built—the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA and his political-action organization, Turning Point Action—are achievements that even his harshest critics envy and wish they could replicate for their own side.
Founded in 2012, TPUSA now boasts $85 million in revenue with 9,000 college chapters and 1,100 high school chapters (Kirk’s wife, Erika, said that they received 18,000 new chapter requests after her husband’s death). Kirk himself built an influential podcasting platform that in early 2024 was averaging between 500,000 and 750,000 downloads per day, according to internal data from Turning Point.1 His TikTok account drew millions of followers, with some viral videos getting as many as 50 million views. Turning Point’s get-out-the-vote efforts are also credited for helping flip states like Arizona in Donald Trump’s favor and propelling Republican candidates throughout the country.
“I can’t tell you how many times major Democratic donor advisors, staffers, and media entrepreneurs have mentioned Turning Point as something the left needs to replicate,” Kyle Tharp, a Democratic consultant, recently wrote in his politics newsletter, Chaotic Era.
Which raises the question: Why haven’t they done it? Why doesn’t something similar to Turning Point exist on the left?
I spent last week interviewing Democratic pollsters, strategists, and progressive organizers asking these very questions. And the most common explanation offered was