Turning Point founder has been a key figure in building support for Republicans among young people

Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old activist who was shot at an appearance at a Utah college Wednesday, personifies the pugnacious, populist conservatism that has taken over the Republican Party in the age of President Donald Trump.

Kirk has long focused on energizing young conservatives with speaking events like the one at Utah Valley University where the shooting occurred. He 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, Turning Point’s home state, by five percentage points after narrowly losing it in 2020. The group is known for its flamboyant events that often feature strobe lighting and pyrotechnics. It claims more than 250,000 student members.

Kirk shows 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 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.