Turning Point USA Has An Erika Kirk Problem | EUROtoday

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

“Charlie Kirk came and converted the young men. Erika Kirk is coming to convert the young women,” Tyler Bowyer wrote on X. It raked in almost 100,000 likes and has been reposted near 9,000 instances.

That forecast accompanied the information that Erika Kirk would assume her late husband’s function as CEO and chair of his conservative nonprofit, a pressure on faculty 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 House.

Headlines pondering the likelihood ensued. “In Erika Kirk, conservative women see the future,” CNN wrote the subsequent day. “Republicans hope Erika Kirk can bring more young women into the party,” NBC News ran weeks later. They featured interviews with younger conservative girls and Republican strategists ― a lot of them suggesting Turning Point may use Erika Kirk as a conduit to succeed in Gen Z girls.

Turning Point 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 actuality, consultants 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 certainly think that Erica Kirk could be a strong leader, bringing in more young women than, perhaps, have been a part of the Turning Point movement to date, but I don’t suspect we’re going to see a massive shift right amongst young women anytime soon,” mentioned Rachel Janfaza, founding father of the Gen Z analysis and technique agency The Up and Up.

Dr. Corey Seemiller, a generational knowledgeable who’s written six books about Gen Z, agreed, saying she doesn’t count on Erika Kirk to be some form of “massive draw” to younger girls, particularly “if she continues to put forth the same message that Charlie Kirk did.”

“The messaging that’s resonating with Gen Z women is really different than the messaging that’s resonated with Gen Z men,” 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. Men 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 appeal,” Seemiller mentioned. “Charlie Kirk didn’t hold back, and young men were like, ‘Yes, finally, someone’s saying something for me. He’s speaking my language.’”

“Can Erica Kirk be that same thing?” she requested. “I don’t think women are looking for that.”

Across 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 idea of finding that partner because you don’t want to go through life solo is definitely not something women are embracing in bulk, by any stretch,” Seemiller mentioned of Gen Z girls.

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

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

“We’re not seeing any indicators that these women are leaning on these ‘head of household’ men who would take care of them financially,” Seemiller noticed.

Even inside Turning Point’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 News 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 decisions. 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, inserting it at No. 1.

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

“I hear in my listening sessions with Gen Z women a strong focus on financial stability and financial freedom as the top thing that they’re prioritizing when they think about metrics for success in their future,” she mentioned.

It doesn’t seem 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 extensively panned on social media, she known as the Democrat’s victory “so ironic and so interesting” and mused that younger girls have been asking issues of their authorities they need to be looking for from a wedding.

“What I don’t want to have happen is women, young women, in the city look to the government as a solution,” she mentioned. “To put off having a family or a marriage, because you’re relying on the government to support you, instead of being united with a husband, where you can support yourself and your husband can support [you]and you guys can all combine together.”

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

Before turning 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 an alternative of specializing in their very own careers.

“Your husband has to be the one that goes out into the world and builds and battles and comes home. Conquers,” she mentioned in an April 2025 episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” whereas sitting subsequent to her husband. “[He] comes home and is like, ‘This is my nest egg, this is what I worked so hard for,’ and the wife is like, ‘Welcome home, babe, whatever you need, we’re here.’”

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

During an look onstage at a Turning Point USA occasion over the summer time, she cautioned it wasn’t “ideal” to get married after 30 and that it’s “not probably the best statistical-odd position.”

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.

“Young people as a whole, especially Gen Z, are about authenticity,” Leela Strong, the director of Tufts’ Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a analysis group centered on youth civic engagement, advised HuffPost.

“They want candidates and figureheads who can speak to substantive issues,” who perceive “those issues they’ve personally experienced,” she mentioned.

Seemiller agreed, saying the burden Gen Z offers to authenticity from leaders is without doubt one of the “biggest findings” in regards to the age group.

Janfaza emphasised the identical: “Anyone looking to connect with Gen Z needs to be real and clear about their day-to-day, how they spend their time and their own priorities.”

Young girls are additionally experiencing the creep of “tradwife” content material on social media from creators “making millions of dollars by encouraging people to not make money,” Seemiller noticed, and it’s probably not touchdown with them.

“Gen Z women are seeing right through that,” she mentioned.

She expects Turning Point USA will ultimately try and bundle the incongruence.

“It’ll be spun to be that she believes in this so much that she has to get other people to do it,” Seemiller mentioned. Or, she predicted, they’ll emphasize her husband’s loss of life, pushing a story that “she wouldn’t have stepped up, but because her husband died, she feels a calling to keep the mission going.”

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

“We’re fully transparent,” she mentioned when speaking about her choice to offer a reside assertion following Charlie Kirk’s capturing.

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