“Where were you two months ago today when you heard Charlie had been shot?” 

That was a question asked to an audience of hundreds of UC Berkeley students in November, during the final leg of the Turning Point USA “American Comeback” tour. The conservative youth activism group was founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Sept. 10.

Chris Vance, the president of the Bruin Republicans at UCLA, was in the dining hall hundreds of miles south. He had just transferred to UCLA from a California community college and was in Westwood early for transfer orientation.

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“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Vance told SFGATE. 

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The college junior recalled how a classmate turned around to show him a video going viral online. The phone screen showed Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative media personality, sitting on a stool under a white event tent at Utah Valley University. He was debating a student, as he had done for over a decade. The event was livestreamed, and about 3,000 people were watching as Kirk spoke into a microphone, facing a crowd of young people who were lined up waiting to talk to him — his quintessential style of debate.

Don't let Google decide who you trust.

Kirk was going back and forth with a student who asked about gun violence, particularly shootings committed by trans people over the last decade compared to the number of shootings overall. Right after Kirk asked whether that number should include acts of gang violence, he was shot.

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Argentine President Javier Milei shows an image of Charlie Kirk as he presents his new book “La construcción del milagro” with a musical show at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Oct. 6, 2025.

Guests wait in line to ask U.S. Vice President JD Vance questions during a Turning Point USA event at Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center in Athens, Ga., on April 14, 2026. 

The moment is so fleeting on camera that you have to pause and replay several times to understand what has happened. But the disturbing video is ultimately straightforward: A loud pop is heard, Kirk reaches for his neck and he slumps over, with his blood visible. Students are heard screaming as they flee the scene. Kirk was pronounced dead that afternoon at a nearby hospital. President Donald Trump confirmed the news on Truth Social.

Vance said he was tapped to be president of the Bruin Republicans shortly after Kirk’s death. He said all he could think about was “the rhetoric about how violent the right is,” and yet, the country’s leading young conservative figure was dead.

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A generational movement 

Based on a recent poll from Yale University, young Americans have turned increasingly to the right. The poll found that while older members of Gen Z — those roughly aged between 23-29 — lean more left, college-aged adults have a more conservative, anti-government perspective on American politics. 

Kirk’s Turning Point USA fits that demographic perfectly.

Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA, speaks before former President Donald Trump’s arrival during Turning Point USA’s “Believers’ Summit” conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., on July 26, 2024. 

In 2012, when he was just 18, Kirk founded his nonprofit after he was encouraged by other conservatives to spread his perspective to college-aged adults like himself. Kirk did not finish his college degree, and even though he gained notoriety by having a presence on campuses, one of the main pillars of his debates was that a college education is a scam. He grew his following by sharing his often polarizing beliefs online, including a three-hour livestream hosted on Real America’s Voice, a conservative network. 

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The show, called “The Charlie Kirk Show,” relied heavily on evangelical Christianity as the underpinning of many of Kirk’s political beliefs. He talked often of opposing abortion and LGBTQ rights and maintained that the “left is failing women.” He rejected transgender people’s rights, and did so often in disparaging ways, once calling trans people “a throbbing middle finger” to God. 

What set Kirk apart from other conservative commentators was his innate debate skill. While he gained a massive following among young conservatives for his brash style and youthful approach, Kirk incited a lot of anger for his social conservatism. Some critics also called him out for his choice to debate liberal college students, accusing him of using young adults on campuses just to prove a point. 

“Charlie Kirk wasn’t an angel,” said Vance, the UCLA junior. “He would go onto college campuses and provoke the s—t out of college liberal kids who themselves don’t know how to regulate their own emotions.” 

Vance distinguished his campus Republican group as a “broad church that can invite conservatives of varied leanings from centrists to conservatives” while, in his view, Turning Point is “more for activist right-wing stuff.”

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Supporters of President Donald Trump yell at counterprotesters outside Donald Trump Jr.’s book promotion at UCLA in Los Angeles’ Westwood neighborhood on Nov. 10, 2019.

The UCLA campus in Los Angeles’ Westwood neighborhood on Nov. 19, 2025.

Kirk became most known for his tours across college campuses involving his “Prove Me Wrong” debate series. Young adults would line up sometimes for hours for the chance to spar with Kirk for a few minutes. Turning Point’s website still has a show page with dozens and dozens of these campus appearances: There’s Kirk, in August 2024, telling a son of immigrants, “You may not like to hear it, but your mom’s a criminal.” There’s Kirk, in June 2025, rebutting a young Christian’s pro-abortion rights views by telling her to “use an ABC logical equation” to “prove” to him why abortion should be legal. “Very simple, right?” he says with a smirk. “You’re in college, you guys do this all the time, right? I hope so.”

In one notable debate from 2024, Kirk sat at a table surrounded by 22 “woke college kids,” in his words. With a timer perched on the table, Kirk engaged in speed-round debates with the students about whether abortion is murder, if college is a scam and on transgender identity. 

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While at Cambridge University last year, Kirk faced an audience of 400 students. In one representative exchange, a man defended abortion by saying, “Something is only a moral question if it affects someone’s wellbeing,” to which Kirk — using a favorite trick, the red herring — replied, “Can we execute dementia patients cause they’re confused about their wellbeing?” 

But in the months since his death, college conservatives in liberal California are now left trying to figure out how to sustain Kirk’s legacy in school settings that are increasingly ideologically contentious. 

Ryan Rundle, a senior student at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, was asked to lead his campus’s Turning Point chapter just days after Kirk was killed. The group doubled in membership after Kirk’s death. Rundle told SFGATE he wanted to carry on the spirit of Kirk through open debate. 

An attendee wears a Charlie Kirk shirt at the “Make Heaven Crowded Tour” in Riverside, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2026.

Over 1,200 students attended a vigil at California Polytechnic State University for late conservative activist Charlie Kirk in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2025. 

“People love the idea of a debate. Right or wrong, it’s a conversation,” he said. He has invited Christian theologian Ray Comfort to talk on campus. Graham Allen, a conservative influencer, came to campus last month and did his own version of Kirk’s “prove me wrong” table. The two leading Republican candidates for governor, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, were invited by Rundle and are coming to Cal Poly SLO later this spring.

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Rundle said that, as a conservative on campus, “it does feel like at times it’s going against the grain as to what California society sets as the standard.”

“I know a lot of people think it’s just super far-right, MAGA Republicans, and that’s just not the case. It’s a very mixed group,” he said of his school’s Turning Point chapter. He later added: “I think people are looking for meaning and something above themselves.”

Rundle was born in November 2003 in Southern California as the Old Fire raged near the San Bernardino Mountains. He said growing up in California has shaped his perspective on the climate, and being a good steward of the land is top of mind for him.

“I believe in protecting the environment, protecting it for the next generation,” he said, acknowledging that some of his beliefs on the matter align more with his left-leaning peers. He said California’s national parks, as well as the state’s large GDP and job opportunities, make him “grateful for a lot to fight for. We should want to care.”

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Turning Point ties college conservatives “to a community that makes them feel like they belong,” Mindy Romero, a professor at the University of Southern California and the director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, told SFGATE. She noted that the organization has expertly marketed itself as a “movement” — something that promises change. 

Attendees wait for the start of Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix on Dec. 18, 2025. 

“In a state like California, if you’re a young Republican, then groups like Turning Point become more important and give you a home that you may not get on a college campus,” she said.

For Rundle, being asked to lead such a rare community so soon after Kirk’s death was daunting.

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“I was a little scared and felt like I had a huge burden to carry, especially now that Charlie is gone,” he said. “It felt like I had to step up and take the mantle of being the leader and follow in his wake. It feels like it's impossible to live up to.”

‘It’s not like Gen Z has got it figured out’

Soon, California voters will decide on a new governor for the first time in eight years. Previously conservative congressional districts are at risk of flipping blue after a controversial redistricting fight. For college-aged adults, this is their first real chance to chime in on California politics.

As Rundle put it, the priority will be policy, not party. “I think the movement of our generation is that they identify more with the values than the political party,” he said. “It’s been awesome to see because it makes people critically think if their values are being represented.”

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Attendees await the arrival of U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the Pavilion at Ole Miss on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., on Oct. 29, 2025.

A view of audience members during the memorial service for political activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Sept. 21, 2025. 

California’s college students have familiar concerns: how they will pay rent, whether they will ever buy a home, or if the jobs they are studying for now will exist by the time they graduate. They worry about what the world will look like by the time they have the chance to really experience it and how the government will factor into those experiences.

“Young people are often forming their political consciousness in the moment and in response to big things happening in the country,” said Alberto Medina, who leads communications for a research hub at Tufts University that analyzes young voters.

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Medina pointed to several pivotal moments of the last decade: the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which made gun violence a youth-led movement; the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which made abortion and reproductive rights front-and-center issues; and wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Iran, which have combined to shine a spotlight on relationships abroad and the economy at home.

There is also, as USC professor Romero pointed out, the COVID-19 pandemic.

“A lot of Gen Z is anti-government” because they came of age during a time when the government was a “very vivid” part of their lives, Romero said, citing things like mask mandates and stay-at-home orders.

Megan Pinnell, a 26-year-old from Chico and the president of Folsom Lake College’s founding chapter of Turning Point, told SFGATE that the group “allows people to think for themselves. It’s all about doing your own research.”

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Guests attend a Turning Point USA event with U.S. Vice President JD Vance at Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center in Athens, Ga., on April 14, 2026. 

She took over the leadership role because “Charlie Kirk is someone I’ve looked up to, I’ve watched him for years.”

“I’ve always been conservative, I feel,” she said, crediting her ideals to her grandparents, who she said raised her with more “old-school-type beliefs.” 

Her peers, she said, are more left-leaning, but “they’re not mean about it. I’ve worn my Charlie Kirk shirts and Christian shirts on campus.” She said every now and then she’s “gotten a few looks,” but that’s all. “Politics,” she said, “is a sticky mess. It’s too much of a game.” 

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“I’d say it’s not like Gen Z has got it figured out,” said Rundle from Cal Poly SLO.

“Our problem with Gen Z is we get everything from social media, that the algorithm is curated,” he explained. “A lot of it is being fed to you. It’s important to make sure you’re having real-life engagements and research and not just all coming from social media. It seems like the world is going in totally different places if you look at algorithms.”

In a post-Kirk world, conservative influencers who largely earn their fame from social media are emulating his debate style, including his use of campuses.

Guests wait in line to ask U.S. Vice President JD Vance questions during a Turning Point USA event at Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center in Athens, Ga., on April 14, 2026.

An attendee holds up a phone during the national anthem at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix on Dec. 18, 2025. 

The Bruin Republicans invited evangelical influencer James Owen and conservative debater Chloe Cole to campus in early March. Owen was on tour with his organization ReAwaken USA when he came to Los Angeles to debate how to define a fetus and whether trans people should exist. Similarly, Cole is known for her position that minors should not receive gender-affirming care after saying she regretted her own transition. Around 60 people watched her debate students on campus, according to the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper. One undergraduate student told the paper that it was uncommon to have someone like her on their campus, and they were “curious” to listen to someone with a different view. 

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It’s likely that more figures like them will continue to visit college campuses and debate the issues. 

Vance, the president of the Bruin Republicans, said that the new wave of campus influencers is “not just people on the right” anymore. On all sides of the spectrum, commentators are using debate and social media to overwhelmingly target young people. To wit: National Ground Game, another campus group that serves as UCLA’s liberal alternative to Turning Point, invited a liberal political streamer in April to debate students, the Bruin reported.

“I wouldn’t describe it as a Kirk legacy,” Vance said. “I’d consider it the Kirk doctrine. They’re exercising the Kirk doctrine.”

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