Turning Point USA Has An Erika Kirk Problem

Per week after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Turning Level USA’s chief working officer made a prediction.

“Charlie Kirk got here and transformed the younger males. Erika Kirk is coming to transform the younger girls,” Tyler Bowyer wrote on X. It raked in almost 100,000 likes and has been reposted near 9,000 occasions.

That forecast accompanied the information that Erika Kirk would assume her late husband’s position as CEO and chair of his conservative nonprofit, a power on school campuses credited with luring so many Gen Z males to far-right politics in an election that despatched President Donald Trump again to the White Home.

Headlines pondering the chance ensued. “In Erika Kirk, conservative girls see the longer term,” CNN wrote the subsequent day. “Republicans hope Erika Kirk can deliver extra younger girls into the celebration,” NBC Information ran weeks later. They featured interviews with younger conservative girls and Republican strategists ― lots of them suggesting Turning Level might use Erika Kirk as a conduit to achieve Gen Z girls.

Turning Level USA didn’t reply when requested if it had seen extra curiosity from younger girls since Erika Kirk took over. It additionally didn’t reply to requests for an interview along with her.

The fact, specialists within the younger voting bloc say, is that younger girls actually aren’t shopping for the narrative that Erika Kirk has been peddling: that they’d be happier leaving their careers behind, getting married younger, having youngsters and “submitting” to their husbands.

“I definitely suppose that Erica Kirk may very well be a powerful chief, bringing in additional younger girls than, maybe, have been part of the Turning Level motion thus far, however I don’t suspect we’re going to see a large shift proper amongst younger girls anytime quickly,” stated Rachel Janfaza, founding father of the Gen Z analysis and technique agency The Up and Up.

Dr. Corey Seemiller, a generational professional who’s written six books about Gen Z, agreed, saying she doesn’t anticipate Erika Kirk to be some type of “large draw” to younger girls, particularly “if she continues to place forth the identical message that Charlie Kirk did.”

“The messaging that’s resonating with Gen Z girls is admittedly completely different than the messaging that’s resonated with Gen Z males,” she famous, saying the demographic is shaping as much as have one of many greatest political gender divides in generations.

That’s evident from latest elections. In 2024, younger girls ages 18-29 selected then-Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by an 18-point margin. Males in that age group swung considerably the opposite manner, selecting Trump over Harris by a 14-point margin.

Key to Charlie Kirk’s success luring younger males to MAGA was his “shock attraction,” Seemiller stated. “Charlie Kirk didn’t maintain again, and younger males have been like, ‘Sure, lastly, somebody’s saying one thing for me. He’s talking my language.’”

“Can Erica Kirk be that very same factor?” she requested. “I don’t suppose girls are in search of that.”

Throughout the political spectrum, Gen Z girls have very completely different emotions about marriage, youngsters and metrics for fulfillment than each Erika Kirk and their male counterparts do.

“This concept of discovering that associate since you don’t need to undergo life solo is unquestionably not one thing girls are embracing in bulk, by any stretch,” Seemiller stated of Gen Z girls.

Current information she’s gathered confirmed that whereas 23% of Gen Z males stated they wished to get married to keep away from being alone, simply 13% of ladies in that age group stated the identical.

And amongst members of Gen Z who stated they don’t need to get married, 56% of ladies cited a want to be unbiased, in comparison with simply 41% of males, her information confirmed. Amongst that group, 24% of ladies cited an opposition to combining funds, whereas simply 17% of males stated the identical.

“We’re not seeing any indicators that these girls are leaning on these ‘head of family’ males who would care for them financially,” Seemiller noticed.

Even inside Turning Level’s goal demographic of younger, right-leaning voters, the variations in women and men’s priorities are astounding ― particularly relating to one of many Kirks’ greatest mandates: have youngsters.

In September, an NBC Information ballot that broke down Gen Z’s priorities by each intercourse and Trump vs. Harris, voters discovered that whereas Gen Z males who voted for Trump ranked having youngsters as their No. 1 marker of success, their feminine counterparts ranked it sixth amongst their 13 selections. And whereas these males ranked being married fourth, these feminine Trump voters ranked it ninth.

In one other twist, Gen Z girls who voted for Trump ranked reaching monetary independence greater than each teams of males and feminine Harris voters, putting it at No. 1.

The findings monitor with what Janfaza hears within the gatherings she holds with younger voters.

“I hear in my listening classes with Gen Z girls a powerful concentrate on monetary stability and monetary freedom as the highest factor that they’re prioritizing when they give thought to metrics for fulfillment of their future,” she stated.

It doesn’t appear to be Erika Kirk grasps any of that. In a latest interview, she appeared completely perplexed that so many younger girls voted for New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a candidate who ran on affordability and America’s cost-of-living disaster. In remarks that have been broadly panned on social media, she known as the Democrat’s victory “so ironic and so fascinating” and mused that younger girls have been asking issues of their authorities they need to be in search of from a wedding.

“What I don’t need to have occur is girls, younger girls, within the metropolis look to the federal government as an answer,” she stated. “To place off having a household or a wedding, since you’re counting on the federal government to assist you, as a substitute of being united with a husband, the place you’ll be able to assist your self and your husband can assist [you], and also you guys can all mix collectively.”

There’s an elephant within the room working towards Erika Kirk.

Earlier than changing into the CEO of a nonprofit with tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in belongings and making a number of media appearances every week, Erika Kirk lectured younger girls on the significance of being a “helpmate” to their husbands as a substitute of specializing in their very own careers.

“Your husband needs to be the one which goes out into the world and builds and battles and comes house. Conquers,” she stated in an April 2025 episode of “The Charlie Kirk Present” whereas sitting subsequent to her husband. “[He] comes house and is like, ‘That is my nest egg, that is what I labored so onerous for,’ and the spouse is like, ‘Welcome house, babe, no matter you want, we’re right here.’”

Even earlier than changing into CEO, she was a businesswoman with a podcast, a clothes line and a number of levels.

Throughout an look onstage at a Turning Level USA occasion over the summer season, she cautioned it wasn’t “best” to get married after 30 and that it’s “not most likely the most effective statistical-odd place.”

Erika Kirk was 32 when she married Charlie Kirk, who was 5 years her junior.

That’s a hypocrisy that will not jive with younger girls or males.

“Younger folks as an entire, particularly Gen Z, are about authenticity,” Leela Robust, the director of Tufts’ Middle for Info & Analysis on Civic Studying and Engagement, a analysis group centered on youth civic engagement, advised HuffPost.

“They need candidates and figureheads who can converse to substantive points,” who perceive “these points they’ve personally skilled,” she stated.

Seemiller agreed, saying the load Gen Z provides to authenticity from leaders is among the “greatest findings” concerning the age group.

Janfaza emphasised the identical: “Anybody seeking to join with Gen Z must be actual and clear about their day-to-day, how they spend their time and their very own priorities.”

Younger girls are additionally experiencing the creep of “tradwife” content material on social media from creators “making hundreds of thousands of {dollars} by encouraging folks to not make cash,” Seemiller noticed, and it’s probably not touchdown with them.

“Gen Z girls are seeing proper by means of that,” she stated.

She expects Turning Level USA will finally try to bundle the incongruence.

“It’ll be spun to be that she believes on this a lot that she has to get different folks to do it,” Seemiller stated. Or, she predicted, they may emphasize her husband’s dying, pushing a story that “she wouldn’t have stepped up, however as a result of her husband died, she feels a calling to maintain the mission going.”

Erika Kirk hasn’t addressed the hypocrisy criticisms. However at a latest CBS city corridor look, she asserted her authenticity.

“We’re absolutely clear,” she stated when speaking about her determination to provide a stay assertion following Charlie Kirk’s taking pictures.

“What you see,” she promised, “is what you get.”