Hook paragraph\n\n## Turning Point USA and a New Voice\n\nCamdyn Glover, 18, said she used to be a quiet conservative who worried about what teachers would think or if she would lose friends over her convictions. She said something changed when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, and she started crying in her classroom at Indiana University while other students cheered and clapped.\n\n\”We can’t be silenced,\” Glover decided.\n\nShe is now visiting Phoenix with her parents and brothers for this year’s Turning Point USA conference, the first to take place since Kirk’s death. The organization, which became a political phenomenon with its masculine appeals to college men, is also expanding outreach to young women like Glover. The shift is poised to accelerate now that Turning Point is led by Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, who has embraced her new role at the helm of a conservative juggernaut with chapters across the country.\n\nShe said, \”They want to promote a strong independent woman who does hold these values and can go stand up for herself. But it’s also OK to do it in heels, put some makeup on, wear a dress.\”\n\n## Erika Kirk: From Pageant Winner to Conservative Leader\n\nErika Kirk, wife of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, spoke at a memorial for her husband and said Charlie’s mission was to help young men like his killer. She also said the organization would be \”10 times greater through the power of his memory.\”\n\nA former beauty pageant winner who has worked as a model, actress and casting director, she founded a Christian clothing line and a ministry that teaches about the Bible. In a recent interview with The New York Times, she said she had fully bought into \”boss babe\” culture before Charlie showed her a \”healthier\” perspective on life. Now she leads the multimillion‑dollar organization.\n\n## The Gender Gap in Republican Politics\n\nA recent Gallup analysis shows that the political gap between young men and women has been growing for years. Women under 30 are more likely to identify as ideologically liberal and have embraced liberal views on abortion, the environment and gun laws. The schism was clear in the last presidential election, where 57% of male voters under 30 supported Trump, compared to only 41% of women under 30, according to AP VoteCast.\n\nTurning Point has been working to change that, hosting events like the Young Women’s Leadership Summit and urging attendees to embrace traditional family values and gender roles. Charlie Kirk said earlier this year that if a young woman’s priority is to find a husband, she should go to college for a \”MRS degree.\”\n\nMatthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric at University of North Georgia, said Erika Kirk could be a more effective messenger because she was focused on her career before meeting her husband. He added, \”I do think her story resonates more because she tried it out and can tell them it is not for them.\”\n\n## Voices from the Movement\n\nOne of Glover’s classmates, Stella Ross, said she stumbled upon Charlie Kirk on TikTok in the months before the last presidential election. She already felt like her perspectives were being treated differently on campus and thought she was receiving unfairly low grades in her political science classes. A devout Catholic, Ross said she was inspired by how Charlie Kirk wasn’t afraid to weave his evangelical faith into his political arguments.\n\nShe also noticed how many women posted comments of appreciation on Erika Kirk’s videos, and she joined Indiana University’s Turning Point chapter in the same month that Trump won his comeback campaign. \”I was like, wow, if Erika can do it, I can do it,\” Ross said.\n\nRoss has career aspirations of her own — she interns with Indiana’s Republican Party and aspires to be a press secretary for a governor or president. She hopes to have flexibility in her job to be fully present with her children and believes that a traditional nuclear structure — man, woman and their children — is \”God’s plan.\”\n\nWhen she thinks of Erika Kirk, \”it’s really cool to see that she can live out that balance and it makes me feel like that could be a more realistic future for me because I’m seeing it firsthand.\”\n\nVice President JD Vance honored Charlie Kirk at a memorial service in Glendale, Arizona.\n\nAubree Hudson, president of Turning Point’s chapter at Brigham Young University for only two weeks, visited nearby Utah Valley University for an event with Charlie Kirk. She said she was standing only about six feet away when he was fatally shot. She ran to find her husband, who was at the back of the crowd, and they fled to her car.\n\nHudson, 22, is from a rural farm town in southwestern Colorado. Her conservative convictions are rooted in her family’s faith and patriotism. A copy of the U.S. Constitution hangs in her parents’ home, and her father taught her to value God, family and country, in that order. Her mother stayed at home, telling her children that \”you guys are my career.\”\n\nSince Kirk’s assassination, the number of people — particularly women — getting involved with the organization jumped \”big time.\”\n\nEmma Paskett, 18, was planning to attend the Utah Valley University event after one of her classes, but Kirk was shot before she made it there. Although she wasn’t very familiar with Turning Point before that point, Paskett said she started watching videos of Kirk later that night.\n\nPaskett considers Erika Kirk to be a \”one in a million\” role model, and her role as a leader was a driving factor in signing up. \”That’s exactly what I want to be like,\” she said.\n\nRaquel Debono, an influencer who lives in New York City, described the event as a \”Stepford wives conference,\” featuring women in pink floral dresses. She said Turning Point’s emphasis on being traditional wives \”leaves out a lot of women who work,\” and she added, \”and I think they’re going to lose all those voters, honestly, in the next election cycle if they keep it up.\”\n\nWhite House chief of staff Susie Wiles said Charlie Kirk made the \”winning difference\” for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Camdyn Glover found a political home in Turning Point USA after Kirk’s shooting.\n- Erika Kirk leads the organization, expanding outreach to women.\n- The gender gap remains a challenge; Turning Point seeks to bridge it.\n\nThe tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s death has reshaped Turning Point USA under Erika Kirk’s leadership, inspiring young women like Glover to join a movement that blends traditional values with a new approach to female engagement.
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