Many Republicans Are Skeptical Of Turning Point S Ability To Get Out

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Oct 24, 2025, 11:24 AM

many republicans are skeptical of turning point s ability to get out

FILE - Former President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Turning Point CEO Charlie Kirk before speaking during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, Saturday, July 23, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures as he finishes speaking at The Believers’ Summit 2024 at a Turning Point Action event in West Palm Beach, Fla., July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — Turning Point’s representatives have made two things clear in meetings with state and local Republican leaders — Donald Trump has blessed their conservative organization to help lead his get-out-the-vote effort, and...

Both prospects terrify fellow Republicans. Soaring to prominence after Trump’s unexpected 2016 win, Turning Point earned a reputation for hosting glitzy events, cultivating hard-right influencers and raising prodigious sums of money while enriching the group’s leaders. They’ve had far less success helping Republicans win, especially in their adopted home state of Arizona. WASHINGTON — The conservative group Turning Point has seen a swell of Republican support across the country in the aftermath of its founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination last month, but the organization’s future in Wisconsin... Turning Point and its allies failed to take control of the Republican Party of Wisconsin earlier this year. And they recently encountered pushback in establishing new campus chapters at high schools and colleges in the state, even as requests for new chapters reportedly surged across the nation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Turning Point’s representatives have made two things clear in meetings with state and local Republican leaders — Donald Trump has blessed their conservative organization to help lead his get-out-the-vote effort, and... Both prospects terrify fellow Republicans. Soaring to prominence after Trump’s unexpected 2016 win, Turning Point earned a reputation for hosting glitzy events, cultivating hard-right influencers and raising prodigious sums of money while enriching the group’s leaders. They’ve had far less success helping Republicans win, especially in their adopted home state of Arizona. Now the organization has leveraged its ties to Trump to expand its influence in a way that could be potentially lucrative. Turning Point has sought to lead an effort to remake the GOP’s get-out-the-vote effort based on the theory that there are thousands of Trump supporters who rarely vote but could be persuaded to in...

And they are pitching their new mobile app as vital to this effort’s success. The Associated Press obtained an unvarnished look at how Turning Point is promoting its strategy by obtaining several recordings of presentations made by its representatives to state and local Republican officials. In those presentations, Turning Point operatives honed in on churchgoers and hunters, citing statistics that purport to show how few of each group cast ballots in 2020. Their argument, which is questioned by critics, is if groups like Turning Point target such groups, Republicans will likely sweep the swing states for Trump, the recordings show. Attendees sing praise songs before watching Turning Point's Charlie Kirk at Dream City Church in Phoenix on June 5. Caitlin O'Hara for NPR hide caption

Donald Trump and his campaign have put a lot of faith in Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point network of nonprofits. Over summer, the former president headlined four campaign events with the 31-year-old Kirk. They appeared together at another Turning Point event in Georgia on Wednesday with one more event planned for Thursday in Nevada. Trump's campaign has turned over much of its 2024 voter turnout efforts to several outside groups, including Turning Point Action, rather than have the campaign and the Republican National Committee spearhead the effort, as... "I want to thank a special person, Charlie Kirk, for his tremendous leadership, as well as everyone at Turning Point Action, for making this event possible," said Trump onstage at a Phoenix megachurch event... "From now until counting day and now until voting month, I will work the hardest that I have worked these last 12 years.

I will give everything I possibly can," Kirk told the same crowd hours earlier. Kirk's Turning Point constellation of nonprofits is large and well funded, but untested when it comes to turnout operations. This summer, Turning Point Action, the group's political arm, announced it planned to raise $108 million to spur turnout to elect Trump to another term in the White House. Republican leaders at the state and national levels are propelling Turning Point USA, the conservative advocacy group co-founded by Charlie Kirk, further into K-12 schools following the activist’s assassination earlier this month. The organization, which is known for its presence on college campuses, says it already has more than 1,000 chapters in high schools across the country and 48 representatives on staff meant to help students... Since the 31-year-old’s death, Kirk’s allies have pledged to expand the group’s reach and impact, and the organization has reported a surge in new interest.

It received 54,000 inquiries about starting new chapters within days of Kirk’s death, a Turning Point USA spokesperson told CNN last week. Turning Point USA is also getting an assist from Republican leaders. The U.S. Department of Education last week announced it was partnering with the organization, along with dozens of other conservative groups, to launch a coalition to produce educational programming for schools and universities in advance of... And prior to announcing his resignation Wednesday, Oklahoma’s state education chief vowed this week to put a Turning Point USA chapter into every high school in his state as part of a partnership with... Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press

Bill Barrow, Associated Press Bill Barrow, Associated Press Charlie Kirk began plotting a way to mold young minds into conservatism at an age when he was still sorting out his own path. Looking to channel his political inclinations into action after a rejection from West Point, Kirk was 18 when he launched a grassroots organization from an Illinois garage that would grow alongside the rise of... Kirk admitted later he had “no money, no connections and no idea what I was doing” when he started Turning Point USA in 2012. But his rhetorical gifts for countering progressive ideas by leaning into cultural tensions and making provocative declarations instantly resonated with college audiences during the Obama years. READ MORE: 4 things to to know about the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk

Fox News contributor Joe Concha reflects on Charlie Kirk's impact on the conservative movement. It's no overstatement to say that Charlie Kirk's powerful reach and influence among conservatives helped put President Donald Trump back in the White House. Kirk, the MAGA world rock star and ally of Trump and the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., turned the extremely influential Turning Point USA youth organization that he co-founded at age 18 into... "His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever," the president said of his close friend and ally, in a video posted to social media... Vice President JD Vance, who was also very close to Kirk, highlighted his friend's efforts in the 2024 campaign and in advising the Trump-Vance administration this year. When news hit that Bad Bunny would headline the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, his fans rejoiced.

The choice made sense given that the Puerto Rican superstar is among the most streamed artists on the planet, and the performance is also set to make history: Because Bad Bunny doesn’t sing in... Bad Bunny took pride in that fact. “What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” he said in a statement on the day of the announcement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown … this is for my people, my culture, and our history. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL.” However, the right had an entirely different reaction.

Conservative commentators immediately attacked the decision of Roc Nation, the NFL, and Apple Music and launched into a full meltdown on social media. They latched onto the fact that Bad Bunny would not be singing in English and grumbled about his political and immigration stances. (He has been outspoken about Puerto Rican independence and has called out Trump’s immigration policies, saying in a recent interview that he decided not to tour in the U.S. because of fears that ICE would harass his Latino fan base.) “The NFL is self-destructing year after year,” MAGA YouTuber Benny Johnson wrote on X. Their protests got more dramatic as Trump advisers, and even Trump himself, weighed in. Trump called the decision to have Bad Bunny headline “absolutely ridiculous,” while the organization Turning Point USA went as far as setting up a “counterprogram” called “The All-American Halftime Show” as an alternative to...

Meanwhile, Bad Bunny has commented little, save for a Saturday Night Live monologue poking fun at the situation. Here’s everything that’s happened so far. Turning Point’s representatives have made two things clear in meetings with state and local Republican leaders — Donald Trump has blessed their conservative organization to help lead his get-out-the-vote effort, and local party officials... Both prospects terrify fellow Republicans. Soaring to prominence after Trump’s unexpected 2016 win, Turning Point earned a reputation for hosting glitzy events, cultivating hard-right influencers and raising prodigious sums of money while enriching the group’s leaders. They’ve had far less success helping Republicans win, especially in their adopted home state of Arizona.

Now the organization has leveraged its ties to Trump to expand its influence in a way that could be potentially lucrative. Turning Point has sought to lead an effort to remake the GOP’s get-out-the-vote effort based on the theory that there are thousands of Trump supporters who rarely vote but could be persuaded to in... And they are pitching their new mobile app as vital to this effort’s success. The Associated Press obtained an unvarnished look at how Turning Point is promoting its strategy by obtaining several recordings of presentations made by its representatives to state and local Republican officials. In those presentations, Turning Point operatives honed in on churchgoers and hunters, citing statistics that purport to show how few of each group cast ballots in 2020. Their argument, which is questioned by critics, is if groups like Turning Point target such groups, Republicans will likely sweep the swing states for Trump, the recordings show.

Many Republicans Are Skeptical Of Turning Point S Ability To Get Out

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