A year after Charlie Kirk’s death, are young voters turning on Trump?

Turning Point USA has expanded its campus presence, even as Trump’s support among young men has fallen.

One year after the assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, the organisation he co-founded, Turning Point USA (TPUSA), has expanded its presence in schools across the United States, even as young voters show growing dissatisfaction with the Republican Party.

As of Thursday, Turning Point has more than 3,500 high school chapters, up 180 percent since Kirk’s death, according to the organisation.

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It also boasts more than 1,500 college chapters, a more than 60 percent increase.

Kirk was a prominent conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump at the time of his death on September 10, 2025. He was assassinated while speaking to students at Utah Valley University, in an incident captured on video.

His assassination would inspire the Trump administration to pursue a crackdown on what it called “domestic terrorist organisations”, including the loose-knit antifascist movement known as Antifa.

Kirk built Turning Point USA into a major youth organising force within the Republican Party, helping to mobilise young conservative voters.

But the growth of Turning Point’s political infrastructure comes as Republicans face growing dissatisfaction among young voters over the economy and the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Only 32 percent of men ages 18 to 29 approved of Trump’s performance in August, down from 43 percent in February 2025, according to polling from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos.

That slippage comes after gains during the last general election. Trump won 46 percent of young men’s votes in the 2024 election, a seven-point increase from 2020, according to Pew Research Center data.

Cost-of-living pressures are among young voters’ biggest concerns. A Harvard Youth Poll conducted in March and April found that half of Americans ages 18 to 29 said inflation affected them “a lot”, while 45 percent said they were struggling to make ends meet or had little financial security.

Those economic pressures have been compounded by the war in Iran, which has added an average of $750 in household expenses, according to Moody’s Analytics, an economic research firm.

Within TPUSA itself, debates over US support for Israel have grown. A recent poll from the firm YouGov and the publication The Economist found that only 16 percent of young people thought US military action in Iran was the right decision.

Yet the group’s expanding network gives Republicans significant traction to rally younger voters ahead of the November 3 congressional midterm elections.

A memorial will be held by Turning Point USA at Utah Valley University on Thursday, one year after Kirk was fatally shot during a debate on campus. The group will also memorialise Kirk at the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, Texas.