Turning Point USA Has An Erika Kirk Problem

Gen Z women aren’t so keen on the MAGA fantasy pitched by Turning Point’s new CEO.

A week after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Turning Point USA’s chief operating 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 nearly 100,000 likes and has been reposted close to 9,000 times.

That forecast accompanied the news that Erika Kirk would assume her late husband’s role as CEO and chair of his conservative nonprofit, a force on college campuses credited with luring so many Gen Z men to far-right politics in an election that sent President Donald Trump back to the White House.

Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty

Headlines pondering the possibility ensued. “In Erika Kirk, conservative women see the future,” CNN wrote the next day. “Republicans hope Erika Kirk can bring more young women into the party,” NBC News ran weeks later. They featured interviews with young conservative women and Republican strategists ― many of them suggesting Turning Point could use Erika Kirk as a conduit to reach Gen Z women.

Turning Point USA didn’t respond when asked if it had seen more interest from young women since Erika Kirk took over. It also did not respond to requests for an interview with her.

The reality, experts in the young voting bloc say, is that young women really aren’t buying the narrative that Erika Kirk has been peddling: that they’d be happier leaving their careers behind, getting married young, having children 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,” said Rachel Janfaza, founder of the Gen Z research and strategy firm The Up and Up.

Dr. Corey Seemiller, a generational expert who’s written six books about Gen Z, agreed, saying she doesn’t expect Erika Kirk to be some kind of “massive draw” to young women, especially “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 noted, saying the demographic is shaping up to have one of the biggest political gender divides in generations.

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

– Corey Seemiller, generational expert

That’s evident from recent elections. In 2024, young women ages 18-29 chose then-Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by an 18-point margin. Men in that age group swung significantly the other way, choosing Trump over Harris by a 14-point margin.

Key to Charlie Kirk’s success luring young men to MAGA was his “shock appeal,” Seemiller said. “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 asked. “I don’t think women are looking for that.”

What Gen Z women actually care about

Across the political spectrum, Gen Z women have very different feelings about marriage, children and metrics for success than both 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 said of Gen Z women.

Recent data she’s gathered showed that while 23% of Gen Z men said they wanted to get married to avoid being alone, just 13% of women in that age group said the same.

And among members of Gen Z who said they don’t want to get married, 56% of women cited a desire to be independent, compared to just 41% of men, her data showed. Among that group, 24% of women cited an opposition to combining finances, while just 17% of men said the same.

“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 observed.

Erika Kirk speaks at the Pavilion at Ole Miss on the campus of the University of Mississippi on Oct. 29.

Brad Vest via Getty Images

Even within Turning Point’s target demographic of young, right-leaning voters, the differences in men and women’s priorities are astounding ― especially when it comes to one of the Kirks’ biggest mandates: have children.

In September, an NBC News poll that broke down Gen Z’s priorities by both sex and Trump vs. Harris, voters found that while Gen Z men who voted for Trump ranked having children as their No. 1 marker of success, their female counterparts ranked it sixth among their 13 choices. And while those men ranked being married fourth, those female Trump voters ranked it ninth.

In another twist, Gen Z women who voted for Trump ranked achieving financial independence higher than both groups of men and female Harris voters, placing it at No. 1.

The findings track with what Janfaza hears in the gatherings she holds with young 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 said.

It doesn’t seem like Erika Kirk grasps any of that. In a recent interview, she appeared utterly perplexed that so many young women voted for New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a candidate who ran on affordability and America’s cost-of-living crisis. In remarks that were widely panned on social media, she called the Democrat’s victory “so ironic and so interesting” and mused that young women were asking things of their government they should be seeking from a marriage.

Men attend a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi in October.

Pool via Getty Images

“What I don’t want to have happen is women, young women, in the city look to the government as a solution,” she said. “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.”

Authenticity matters to young people — a lot

There’s an elephant in the room working against Erika Kirk.

Before becoming the CEO of a nonprofit with tens of millions of dollars in assets and making multiple media appearances a week, Erika Kirk lectured young women on the importance of being a “helpmate” to their husbands instead of focusing on their own careers.

“Your husband has to be the one that goes out into the world and builds and battles and comes home. Conquers,” she said in an April 2025 episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” while sitting next 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 before becoming CEO, she was a businesswoman with a podcast, a clothing line and multiple degrees.

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

“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.”

– Rachel Janfaza, Gen Z strategist

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

That’s a hypocrisy that may not jibe with young women or men.

“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 research organization focused on youth civic engagement, told HuffPost.

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

Seemiller agreed, saying the weight Gen Z gives to authenticity from leaders is one of the “biggest findings” about the age group.

Janfaza emphasized the same: “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 women are also experiencing the creep of “tradwife” content on social media from creators “making millions of dollars by encouraging people to not make money,” Seemiller observed, and it’s not really landing with them.

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

She expects Turning Point USA will eventually attempt to package 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 said. Or, she predicted, they will emphasize her husband’s death, pushing a narrative 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 recent CBS town hall appearance, she asserted her authenticity.

“We’re fully transparent,” she said when talking about her decision to give a live statement following Charlie Kirk’s shooting.

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