A year after his death, conservative students struggle to fill void left by Kirk

BySheila Flynn and Christal Hayes

Jeb Jacobi still remembers the echo of the gunshot that killed Charlie Kirk.

He was a volunteer at the Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University (UVU), where Kirk was set to engage in one of his famous live debates on 10 September last year.

But when the conservative activist collapsed, hit by a bullet fired from a sniper rifle, onlookers like Jacobi say they saw their hero become a martyr right before their eyes.

"It feels like there's a forever stain on us here," the third-year university student tells the BBC, as he reflects on the past year since Kirk's death. "This is where Charlie Kirk was killed."

In the wake of the assassination, Jacobi and many others thought that Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the organisation founded by Kirk, could only grow as Kirk's reputation as a conservative activist spread far and wide.

Now, he says, no-one has been able to fill the void.

"It's not the same organisation," he says. "It just doesn't have the same power, the same impact."

By contrast, one of TPUSA's chapter leaders elsewhere in the US denied any suggestion that the organisation was not what it was under Kirk - telling the BBC "this is quite literally just the beginning".

In the immediate aftermath of Kirk's death, support for TPUSA surged. A spokesperson posted on X five days after the killing that the organisation had received "over 32,000 inquiries in the last 48 hours to start new campus chapters".

Since then, however, many like Jacobi have noted a slowing momentum. There has been infighting between more moderate and right-wing factions within the organisation, current members say. In Arkansas, one chapter completely changed its name to disassociate itself from the Kirk-founded organisation, unhappy with the direction in which students felt it was heading.

The BBC contacted TPUSA for comment for this article, but has not received a response.

Utah Valley is located in a conservative area – where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats more than seven to one. But the shooting and political aftermath triggered a kind of culture war - on and off campus.

Jacobi feels his campus is more divided than ever now.

"The culture has gotten more hostile," he says.

"I love for everyone to have their own viewpoints and [be] sharing them," he adds. "The debate is good for society. It's what Charlie did."

Kirk made a name for himself by hosting debates on college campuses where he would spar with people who opposed his views. His popularity on campuses and online made him a rising star in the Republican Party, and President Donald Trump credited Kirk with helping getting young men to vote for him in the last election.

But critics argued that Kirk's debates were designed purely to stoke outrage and garner social media attention, while promoting misogyny, racism and homophobia.

Since his death, some students at UVU have protested against a campus memorial to the conservative activist. They have also tried to stop an event memorialising him from taking place on Thursday, the anniversary of Kirk's death.

Anthony Shinkle, another UVU student, notes how the school's TPUSA chapter and socialist clubs are often in conflict with each other on campus.

He fears Kirk's shooting, and its politically contentious aftermath, have made some supporters afraid to share their political ideology - and sent others further towards more extreme or fringe positions.

"These are impressionable people, impressionable youth," he said, noting how they watched their political hero "be murdered very, very graphically".

"I feel like the assassin got exactly what he wanted," Shinkle, who turns 21 next month, says. "It really feels like there's not anyone who can fill [Kirk's] shoes."

Earlier this month, a judge in Utah cleared the way for a trial of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk. Robinson denies aggravated murder, a capital offence in the state, as well as six other charges.

Jacobi says many people have tried to fill the void left by the 31-year-old activist and father of two.

"Sure, they can echo the conservative message, but they can't do what Charlie did," he says. "He had such a way with his words to draw people in, to make them think, to debate, to get people involved."

"You just don't see that with anyone else," he adds. "I don't know if there will be another him."

Such a dip is not unusual following the assassination of a central founding figure like Kirk, says Mark Brewer, chair of the political science department at the University of Maine.

"You have a movement that was started and led by this kind of charismatic figure, and the charismatic figure goes away," he said. "A little bit of loss of momentum isn't exactly surprising."

He notes that Kirk's "personal status as a martyr remains very strong. You can see plenty of folks on the right who are trying to claim the… affiliation with Kirk."

"In some ways, that maybe has only increased," he said. "Kirk himself, in his own influence of his legacy, I don't think that's going anywhere."

There is, however, "a vacuum", he says.

Macy Gunnell, 22, started a TPUSA chapter at St Mary's College in Indiana following Kirk's death. She says she had tried for years to start one, but it was only after his death that she got the approval.

Gunnell acknowledges divisions within the organisation - but takes a more optimistic viewpoint.

"While there are flying accusations out there that Turning Point is dead, Turning Point's become something that it never was, Turning Point became everything Charlie hated - that could not be further from the truth," says Gunnell, 22, who has since graduated and works in media in Washington DC.

A debater still affiliated with TPUSA, Gunnell travelled to its headquarters over the summer and met Erika Kirk, the founder's widow who took over as CEO, along with the organisation's spokesman Andrew Kolvet.

"I'm confident that Turning Point's not going anywhere, and this is quite literally just the beginning," she says.

Gunnell is among the speakers featured in TPUSA's new Pick Up the Mic campaign - sending debaters to campuses and high schools across the country to continue Kirk's traditions engaging in the art of rhetoric. It begins this semester.

Back at UVU, Jacobi also hopes and believes TPUSA will still grow. He points to a fellow student who was never interested in politics but, after Kirk's death, now helps run their school's chapter of the group.

"I think it's still building," he says.

The killing of Kirk has shaken Shinkle, whose family in Alabama always told him how much safer Utah would be than his home state.

"I kind of feel a weird sense of guilt," he says. "I feel like it's a common sentiment, that everyone wishes they could have done something."

Jacobi, meanwhile, says he had turned to religion instead of deepening his connections with politics.

"When Charlie died, I took a look at myself," he says. "There are so many people who make politics their entire identity. It's so unhealthy for you."

"It really made me realise I needed and wanted a relationship with Christ like Charlie had," he adds. "Ever since I got more involved, I've felt much happier and more peaceful of a person."

And what happens to Turning Point, Prof Brewer says, remains to be seen.

"The final part of the story hasn't been written yet," he said. "So I think a lot will be determined over the next six, 12, 18 months."