Before she met Charlie in 2018, Kirk worked in real estate, launched a faith-based clothing company and appeared on Bravo’s “Summer House.” She later wrote on Instagram that she turned down a full-time role on the show to focus on her legal studies. As her family grew — she is a mother to two young children, ages 1 and 3 — she hosted a podcast and took on speaking engagements.
Jaylin Pedicord, 25, attended Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona with her young family, traveling from the Phoenix area. She told NBC News that she identified with Erika when she heard Charlie Kirk describe his wife as the more conservative of the two.
“I hope Erika is going to use her platform to help younger girls to be more bold in their viewpoints as a conservative,” she said at the service as she nursed her 7-month-old daughter.
Ashley January, visiting from Kansas, said how much she admired Kirk, not just as a mother and a wife but as “Charlie’s equal” and someone who could draw crowds of her own accord.
“Charlie spoke to young men, but Erika will bring the ‘Honey, we’re going to go to this event because I want to,’” January said, holding her 7-month-old son.
Like others, January said she believes Kirk could reach a demographic Republicans have struggled to win over: younger women.
“Look at this place. It’s packed,” said Deana Ruiz, who attended with her husband and son, scanning the stadium floor filled with families of all ages and young women. “My heart breaks for her. I want to support her.”
Bruesewitz, the Kirk family friend, was an adviser on Trump’s 2024 campaign, crafting the strategy that took Trump’s message into the podcast sphere, where it resonated with young male voters.
He said that while the party was “already making progress” in reaching young women, with Kirk serving as a visible example, she could really help make conservative principles feel more accessible and relatable.
“Erika will be such an incredible role model,” he said, adding that her decision to prioritize her family over a career was a key part of that. “She’s a breath of fresh air.”
But reaching a broader swatch of Gen Z women will require more than a focus on family and motherhood.
“What [Charlie] Kirk did successfully with men was to normalize being conservative,” said Landon Wall, a Republican political consultant and founder of GrayHouse polling. “He normalized being conservative on some issues that were too controversial to discuss in public, and he made young men either comfortable feeling these things or comfortable saying these things and voting on behalf of them.”
Wall said there’s a need for a similar strategy targeting young women.
“It has to start culturally before it starts politically,” he said. “I don’t think Republicans can just, in a vacuum, sell their messaging to young women and expect it to work.”
The recent NBC News Decision Desk Poll found that young men and women are also divided in how they define success, with young men who voted for Trump ranking having a family as their top marker of achievement and young women who voted for Kamala Harris placing it second to last. Women who voted for Trump put it in the middle.
That was Charlie’s most important message, Erika said in an emotional address two days after his death, speaking about how her husband “would tell all these young people to come and find their future spouse, become wives and husbands and parents.”
She said that “he wanted everyone to bring heaven into this Earth through love and joy that comes from raising a family.”
One of the issues, Hill said, is that young men and women “seem to be talking past each other.”
“They’re both looking for each other, and they haven’t been able to find that,” he added.
In an interview with NBC News, Kolvet, Turning Point USA’s spokesperson, echoed the idea that Kirk could play a similar role for young women that her late husband did for men. But he said she could also bring young people closer together.
“What Charlie meant to young men, Erika has the ability to mean to young women,” he said. “You can see how much love they shared in her family and as a couple. It’s a great example for young people to aspire to and something I hope can bring healing into what has been a fractious relationship between men and women.”
There are indicators that suggest change could be afoot. Polling by the progressive firm Catalist found that younger voters divided heavily in favor of Democrats around the 2008 recession and during the presidency of Barack Obama. In 2024, it returned to a more evenly divided level not seen since 2004. (Harris won voters under 30 by 11 points, down from Joe Biden’s 24-point win four years previously.)
“Their heavily Democratic lean is not a permanent feature of our politics; instead, cohorts of voters tend to politicize based on the political environment in their late teens and early 20s,” Catalist wrote.
This spring, a Yale youth poll found that young Americans ages 18 to 21 now favor Republicans by 12 points.
“Young people aren’t as wedded to their parties, though, as older people, so their party affiliation is more fluid,” Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin said. “They need to continue to be won over.”
The Turning Point transition
For Erika Kirk and Turning Point, the transition could take time, some Trump allies said. Charlie Kirk was recognized among Republicans as a singular figure who built Turning Point into a powerhouse on the right. That influence stretched much further than his public-facing persona and beyond the organization’s campus debates and high-profile events, which attracted Trump as a speaker on the heels of his election win last year.
Kolvet said Turning Point USA sees significant opportunities in the months ahead.
“We have her back 100%,” he said.
In an interview with The New York Times in late September — the only one she has given to any outlet outside the Turning Point network — Kirk said Trump agreed to be a sounding board for her, just as he was for her husband. She is also close with high-profile figures in the White House; second lady Usha Vance and Vice President JD Vance accompanied her home from Utah, carrying her husband’s casket on the vice president’s plane.
JD Vance has credited Charlie Kirk with significant influence in his political career, describing him as a key figure in both his 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio and his selection as Trump’s running mate last year. Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization also launched a sweeping get-out-the-vote operation in key states that Trump said helped him win over young voters.
That machine is poised to act as a force in upcoming elections if Turning Point retains its influence. It raised nearly $85 million in its fiscal year that ended in June 2024, according to its most recent IRS filing, plus millions more that flowed into affiliated nonprofit groups.
Kiersten Pels, press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said that Turning Point’s importance would continue and that a broader cultural shift since Trump’s election, including a revival of faith, would be turbocharged under Erika Kirk’s leadership.
“We fully support Erika Kirk as she carries Charlie’s vision forward during this next chapter at Turning Point,” Pels said. “We know that the movement he began will grow and flourish under her guidance. Erika’s commitment to faith, family and freedom is inspiring, and it’s clear that the incredible legacy Charlie left behind is in capable hands.”
Still, it’s unclear what replacing Charlie will mean, and some donors are taking a wait-and-see approach.
“I think it’s a mistake to believe that anybody, especially Erika, knows for sure how Charlie’s shoes will be filled at this point,” said a MAGA-aligned Republican consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly.
Kolvet said that “the amount of enthusiasm, both from a grassroots activism perspective as well as a donor perspective, has been incredibly heartening and overwhelming.”
“That’s both for larger donors, as well as small dollar donations, and we’re incredibly grateful,” he added.
Charlie Kirk’s vision of attracting young voters on college campuses to join the Republican Party was once thought of as an uncertain bet, as well. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at the memorial, he joked about Charlie’s seemingly impossible task when he set out to sway younger voters. “I said: ‘College campuses, you’re going to do that? Why don’t you start somewhere easier, like, for example, communist Cuba?’” he said.
Yet Kirk’s strategy paid off, and Trump eventually won a larger proportion of voters under age 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008.
“Charlie Kirk came and converted the young men,” Tyler Bowyer, a Turning Point executive, wrote on X. “Erika Kirk is coming to convert the young women.”