US Politics
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Charlie Kirk’s Empire Is Lining Up Behind a JD Vance Presidential Bid
The vice president spoke Sunday at TPUSA’s premier event, days after Erika Kirk endorsed him for 2028 run
By Natalie Andrews , Eliza Collins
PHOENIX—Before Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, he was readying for JD Vance to become the next president of the United States. Now, Erika Kirk is determined to make that happen.
In her kickoff remarks for Turning Point USA’s first major event since his death, Kirk’s widow told the 31,000 attendees: “We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible.”
The vice president closed the mega conference held here Sunday. Behind the scenes, Turning Point is setting up infrastructure to boost his potential 2028 presidential bid. The conservative group is planning to put representatives in all of Iowa’s 99 counties ahead of the presidential primary.
Iowa is an important early state in the presidential nominating process, and Turning Point is already trying to build grassroots support for Vance there, according to Tyler Bowyer, a top executive with the organization and a close friend of the late Kirk.
“Why mess around? Let the Democrats destroy each other in the primary process, while we benefit from the rare luxury of having a candidate that’s so clearly the front-runner,” Bowyer said in an interview backstage at the conference.
Though he hasn’t declared his intent to run for president, Vance, 41 years old, has put himself in position to be President Trump’s successor. The author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” worked in Silicon Valley before becoming an Ohio senator in 2022.
The president has publicly and privately noted that Vance is his likely heir, often citing him along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with whom Vance has a close relationship. Rubio has said he wouldn’t challenge Vance for the nomination.
Adding the full weight of support from Turning Point’s thousands of members, massive media operation and political organizing would give Vance another advantage.
In remarks Sunday, Vance sought to tamp down internal divisions within the MAGA movement. During this weekend’s events debate erupted over free speech and antisemitism within the Republican Party.
He took the side opposite Ben Shapiro, a popular podcaster, who during his remarks Thursday called on party influencers to denounce, rather than elevate, figures such as Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier.
“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self defeating purity tests,” Vance said. “Every American is invited. We don’t care if you’re white or Black, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little bit boring or somewhere in between.”
He, like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, one of the speakers Shapiro criticized, said that Kirk’s movement was about debate.
“Charlie invited all of us here for a reason because he believed that each of us, all of us, had something worth saying,” Vance said. “And he trusted all of you to make your own judgment. And we have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”
Many of the Turning Point faithful seem to share Charlie Kirk’s vision for Vance. Interviews with more than a dozen attendees found most want to see Vance take over after Trump or at least see him as the clear front-runner.
Kirk’s support of Vance was a good sign for MaryAnne Goehring, 72, a retiree from Houston. “I think he had a good read on people, he had a good intuition about their hearts, about what they were about.” Her husband, Don Goehring, also a 72-year-old retiree, said Vance’s “working with Trump has helped him prepare for stepping in.”
Turning Point, the youth outreach organization Kirk founded, has grown dramatically and now includes faith, media and voter outreach arms. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said the group’s 2024 get-out-the-vote operation made the “winning difference” with reaching young voters and bringing out Trump voters in battleground states like Arizona, where Turning Point is based, and Wisconsin. Both states swung back to Trump after voting for Joe Biden in 2020. The organization plans to expand for next year’s midterms and in 2028.
Last year, Trump increased his margins with nearly all demographic groups including winning outright young men, a major focus of Kirk’s.
Brooke-Lynne Allard, a 20-year-old college student from Anchorage, Alaska, said she felt Vance could help excite young people after Trump’s polling with the demographic has dropped.
“He’s younger, so he’s a lot more relatable. He kind of understands us a little bit better,” Allard said. While Allard slightly prefers Vance, she said she would also be happy with Rubio. Most attendees The Wall Street Journal spoke to said they would like to see a Vance-Rubio ticket.
A handful of attendees said even though Vance appeared to be the front-runner, they didn’t want him to be crowned as the Republican nominee already.
“I do want to see a primary because you just never know,” said Lindsay Boudwin 42, who works for a skin-care company. “JD Vance, if the election were held today, he would get my vote. But am I open to the possibility of somebody else? Sure.”
Turning Point was instrumental in Vance’s elevation in politics. Charlie Kirk’s endorsement of Vance in the Ohio Senate race helped propel Vance from obscurity. Kirk then introduced him to donors, and later to confidants of Trump’s inner circle, and pushed for Trump to nominate Vance for vice president. Kirk was emphatic about his desire for Vance to be the next president.
The two stayed connected by near-daily text messages and in group chats. After the shooting on Sept. 10, people in those conversations posted prayers for Kirk, alerting Vance to the tragedy. Vance went into the Oval Office to tell Trump that Kirk had been shot. He quickly flew to Utah to escort Kirk’s body to Arizona on Air Force Two.
Vance has a roughly 40-percentage-point lead over the rest of the field in the Real Clear Politics average of polls, with almost everyone else below 10% support. For Democrats, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harrisare at the top of a varied list.
A survey by The Argument/Verasight released earlier this past week showed New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a slight lead over Vance in a hypothetical 2028 presidential matchup. The progressive congresswoman told reporters outside the Capitol that it was early, adding “let the record show: I would stomp him!”
Those close to Vance say he is focused on keeping Republican control of the House and Senate in the 2026 midterm elections, while also serving as finance chairman of the GOP, a position that puts him in touch with the country’s wealthiest conservative donors. He plans to continue that next year and speak at rallies to sell the president’s tax bill, which currently doesn’t poll well among voters.
Vance’s office declined an interview request but people close to him caution that it isn’t certain Vance will even run for president. Also, a poor showing by Republicans in the midterms could open the field for rivals of Vance if he stakes his political future on the outcome. The House majority is seen as up for grabs and the Senate, while a long shot, is believed to be somewhat competitive.
Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com and Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com
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