Beyond campuses and churches, can Charlie Kirk turn out votes for Trump?

Donald Trump and his campaign have put a lot of faith in Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point network of nonprofits. Over summer, the former president headlined four campaign events with the 31-year-old Kirk. They appeared together at another Turning Point event in Georgia on Wednesday with one more event planned for Thursday in Nevada. Trump's campaign has turned over much of its 2024 voter turnout efforts to several outside groups, including Turning Point Action, rather than have the campaign and the Republican National Committee spearhead the effort, as has been traditional.

"I want to thank a special person, Charlie Kirk, for his tremendous leadership, as well as everyone at Turning Point Action, for making this event possible," said Trump onstage at a Phoenix megachurch event organized by Turning Point this June.

"From now until counting day and now until voting month, I will work the hardest that I have worked these last 12 years. I will give everything I possibly can," Kirk told the same crowd hours earlier.

Kirk's Turning Point constellation of nonprofits is large and well funded, but untested when it comes to turnout operations. This summer, Turning Point Action, the group's political arm, announced it planned to raise $108 million to spur turnout to elect Trump to another term in the White House.

But as Election Day draws near, Turning Point Action told NPR it has raised only "tens of millions," not $108 million. The group had originally told news outlets it was hiring "hundreds of ballot chasers" in swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, though it appears to have turned over much of those operations to a separate super PAC launched by Elon Musk.

Even if the effort falls short, Kirk and his network of Turning Point-affiliated nonprofits are poised to continue building influence on the American right. They've maintained that ascent in spite of criticism from other conservatives who have long questioned Turning Point's track record of success and lament Kirk's willingness to mainstream far-right personalities and ideas. Kirk declined to be interviewed for this story.

This summer, each of Trump's appearances with Turning Point was a tailored appeal to different slices of the MAGA coalition. These appearances included a religious Believers' Summit, a voter turnout drive, a People's Convention graced by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and a rally featuring anti-vaccine activist and then-presidential-candidate-turned-Trump-surrogate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"You are all welcome in this movement," Kirk told a crowd of thousands in Glendale, Ariz., days after Kennedy endorsed Trump in August.

"I think Charlie Kirk has been very good at pivoting to things that bring him opportunity," said Matt Boedy, a professor of religious rhetoric at the University of North Georgia, who has paid close attention to Kirk since Turning Point's early days.

Kirk's turn to religion

At Turning Point Faith's Believers' Summit in late July, Kirk told the crowd that he has spent a significant part of the last four years touring the U.S., meeting pastors and their congregations.

"I realized that there is a desire for revival in this country, that there is a yearning for a different type of Christianity," said Kirk. "It is about preaching a hot gospel and bringing a nation to repentance, which will then lead to revival."

It was a significant shift in focus for Kirk. As a teenager, he founded Turning Point USA as a conservative outreach group aimed at college students. In 2016, he befriended Donald Trump Jr. and has been close with the Trump family ever since.

In that time, he has evolved from youth organizer and media personality into the head of a wider nonprofit empire with annual revenue of about $100 million. Along the way, Kirk has platformed conspiracy theorists and helped spread falsehoods about the 2020 elections, vaccines, transgender people and demographic change. In recent years, Kirk has turned much of his attention toward activating the religious right politically.

For years, to reach his young target audience, Kirk exclusively used libertarian, secular arguments. As recently as 2018, he affirmed that "we do have a separation of church and state."

But as Kirk approached his 30s, he connected with megachurch televangelists and self-declared prophets who believe the former president has been anointed by God to return to power.

Kirk says his spiritual turn began in earnest in late 2019, when he met a California pastor and politician named Rob McCoy who would soon gain attention for keeping his church open as the state limited public gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

By 2020, Kirk described Trump using a very specific reference to an increasingly popular right-wing Christian concept known as the Seven Mountain Mandate, which religious scholars warn has anti-democratic aims.

"Finally we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence," said Kirk at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

What is the Seven Mountain Mandate?

The Seven Mountain Mandate refers to a religious command, popularized by charismatic Christian leaders in the 2000s, to take dominion over seven areas of cultural influence: government, education, media, family, business, arts and religion.

In a 2011 speech, charismatic Christian leader C. Peter Wagner, an influential proponent of the Seven Mountain concept, explained the goals of the movement he helped build. "Dominion has to do with control. Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing," he said. "Mandate means an authoritative order or command. It doesn't mean a good idea, or suggestion. It means an authoritative order."

Wagner, who died in 2016, was heavily influenced by ideas from the 1970s about enacting Old Testament law today, including capital punishment for things like adultery, homosexuality and blasphemy.

Boedy, the University of North Georgia professor, is writing a book on the Seven Mountain Mandate and said it aims to install perpetual, privileged Christian leadership over government and major industries across the country and world.

"I have nothing against Christians involving themselves in civic action. I am a Christian and I involve myself in civic action," said Boedy, but he argues the goal of the Seven Mountain concept goes far beyond democratic civil action. "It is not just promoting their own thing and hoping to persuade people to go along with them."

What Seven Mountain proponents want varies, but in practice it often includes banning abortion and rolling back public acceptance and protections of LGBTQ+ people. Boedy said the Seven Mountain idea has fueled school board takeovers, book bans in libraries and political campaigns up and down the ballot for years.

Asked what Kirk meant by referring to "the seven mountains" in his prime-time speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told NPR: "I couldn't tell you what it means to different people," without clarifying what Kirk's definition is. "What I think it means to some people is that there's different areas in which culture gets influenced. And, you know, Christians have every right to engage politically."

Kirk, with the help of McCoy, the California pastor, launched Turning Point Faith in 2021 and found a deep new well of Christian money, media and influence, according to Boedy.

Turning Point Faith offers sermon templates, training and high-profile platforms to pastors willing to be more outspoken politically.

"The pastors that I know that have taken the boldest stance over the last two years have actually seen their attendance grow. They need bigger buildings, and their tithes and offerings have increased," Kirk told church leaders at his 2022 Pastors Summit.

NPR has not been able to independently confirm Kirk's claim, which he repeats often. Turning Point Faith claims affiliations with 2,500 congregations and counting.

"They're coming to get us"

Caleb Campbell is one of a number of evangelical leaders worried about the influence of Christian nationalism. He lives in Phoenix, where Turning Point USA is headquartered.

In 2021, his own congregants started handing him flyers for a rally at a nearby megachurch.

"And they said, 'Pastor Caleb, you've got to come. There's a revival happening.' And revival in my religious tradition is, you know, usually talking about a spiritual renewal movement, worship. Things like that," said Campbell.

It turned out to be a monthly event hosted by Kirk. When Campbell went, he said it did feel like a church, complete with prayers, worship music and an offering bucket.

Kirk took the stage, Campbell said, "and then proceeded to do basically a sermon for about 50 minutes, quoting Scripture and then directly tying it to some of his preferred political positions."

There have always been politically outspoken churches, Campbell said, but in the last few years he has watched many pastors turn up the volume on demonizing Democrats and the left, as he said Turning Point encourages. Hundreds of his own congregants have left his church, which he works hard to keep nonpartisan, although his personal politics lean conservative.

"I was referred to as having 'a Luciferian spirit of fear,'" said Campbell. "I remember feeling like, 'What have I been doing all this time if the people that I'm pastoring are buying into this?'"

Campbell thinks Kirk's messages resonate for some Christians by focusing on taking power as the solution to anxiety about changes in culture.

"'They're coming to get us. The big scary enemy is going to make it so that you can't practice your faith in public. They want to destroy the churches. Anthony Fauci wants to shut down God,'" said Campbell, describing the tenor of Christian nationalist messaging like Turning Point's.

At Kirk's 2023 Turning Point Pastors Summit, Kirk told the audience of pastors to put aside differences and unite around Trump. "If we don't get this right, though, and if we continue theological disputes and don't focus on liberty, then we're going to be having those theological disputes from prison," said Kirk, reprising a sentiment he has evoked many times before.

Campbell said he has spent time with Christians who face jail and persecution around the world.

"When I hear Americans using that language, I think it's dishonoring and dishonest," he said. "I mean, I wear a cross around my neck in public. And most of the time people are like, 'Hey, cool cross.'"

There is an increasing belief among some evangelical communities that religious persecution is imminent should Democrats succeed politically, "especially among charismatic believers and those who have kind of an apocalyptic mindset," according to Denison University political science professor Paul Djupe, who has done extensive surveys on religious engagement in politics.

Evangelicals, he said, have also been voting at higher rates over time, even as the proportion of evangelicals in the U.S. has been shrinking.

"So put those together, and that's an incredible batch of tinder that can be ignited to participate in politics, both within elections and then outside of elections in other ways, like showing up to rallies, for instance, donating to candidates, getting a volunteer network to work for candidates," said Djupe.

A growing role in Republican politics

As Turning Point Faith has grown Kirk's network of church partners, another of his nonprofits, Turning Point Action, is marshaling many of those same supporters to turn out votes for Trump this fall.

Voter turnout operations are typically run by national and state Republican parties or candidates' own campaigns. But this year, a Federal Election Commission decision allowed campaigns to coordinate canvassing with outside groups.

For Turning Point, that has meant hiring staffers, developing a canvassing app and staffing tables at both on- and off-campus events. Kolvet, the Turning Point spokesperson, told NPR, "Suffice to say that it is a massive, massive impact when you start combining all of those tabling events, all of those rallies, all of those football games, all those gun shows."

But some who've seen Turning Point's work up close over the years are cautious of taking the group's word about its successes. Among them is Kim Owens, a Republican political consultant in Arizona.

"They started out with that phrase 'big government sucks,'" said Owens, "and that was true and it still is. But they've lost sight of that because now it's about 'big Turning Point is better.'"

The group has become an outsize presence in her state, but not by reaching young voters. Instead, she said, Turning Point's work in recent years has helped force out many longtime Republican Party officers by throwing its resources and support behind candidates that it views as most loyal to Trump. Tyler Montague calls it "rooting out heretics." He was state committeeman for the Arizona Republican Party for 10 years.

"This isn't youth outreach anymore. This is them seizing power. And they're doing it by energizing and activating this strain of populism in the Republican Party," said Montague, who has filed complaints that were later dismissed against Turning Point for alleged campaign finance violations.

Turning Point's true strengths, he said, are its media presence, slick branding and huge, flashy events. These are "shiny objects" for its donors, Montague said, adding that as Turning Point's influence has grown, Arizona Republicans have gotten weaker. In recent years, the party there has lost both U.S. Senate seats, the governor's office and the presidential election.

"They're not winners," Montague said. "They're able to capture this crowd and even fill a cheering room, but not quite get electoral majorities."

Conspiracy theories, legal troubles

Other conservatives have also sounded warnings about Turning Point over the years. In 2018, a memo that leaked from another campus conservative group, Young America's Foundation, included a laundry list of reasons to stay away from Turning Point.

The group's history, the memo says, includes things like fabricating its successes on campuses, hiring "Racists & Nazi Sympathizers" and embarrassing the conservative movement by encouraging students to wear diapers on campus to poke fun at the concept of safe spaces.

Kirk's focus, the memo says, "has always been on building his own brand, not strengthening the Conservative Movement."

In the years after those critiques were leaked to the public, Turning Point's revenues and influence skyrocketed. As NPR reported this story, Turning Point persuaded Young America's Foundation to issue a statement of support.

Young America's Foundation did not refute any of the specific claims in its original memo. But in a statement, its current president, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, told NPR that its competition today is "radicals on campus, in schools and on social media." He added: "We are happy to see Turning Point prosper, as we need more groups in the conservative movement working with students to grow."

Turning Point also quickly collected glowing statements supportive of its record from Donald Trump Jr., former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and three Republican congressmen.

Kolvet, the group's spokesperson, brushed off voices critical of the group. "My response to them is, you know, it's really easy to criticize people that have built something. It's very, very hard to build something. It's very, very hard to build something that has real impact," said Kolvet.

The group's troubles extend beyond just disapproval, however. Some members of Turning Point's staff have also faced legal problems.

Last year, two Turning Point employees admitted to assaulting a queer Arizona State University instructor. One of the employees still works at Turning Point.

This spring, a longtime Turning Point executive was one of 11 Arizonans indicted for involvement in a plot to offer fake Electoral College electors in 2020. He has pleaded not guilty. A state lawmaker running Turning Point's Chase the Vote efforts was accused of personally forging 100 petition signatures to get on the ballot. The lawmaker called a lawsuit filed against him "ludicrous" as he dropped out of his race, after which the lawsuit and an official ethics complaint were also dropped.

Recent guests on Kirk's top-10 podcast include a slavery apologist, a pastor who believes women should not have the right to vote and Steve Sailer, a longtime promoter of racist pseudoscience.

Turning Point's spokesman told NPR that Kirk condemns white supremacy and doesn't always agree with his guests. He also disputed the characterization of Sailer as a white supremacist.

"Pardon us if we have a healthy skepticism of what the approved-of, regime, institutional mainstream label of racism is, because we've seen it be abused time and time again," said Kolvet.

For Montague, the former Republican committeeman in Arizona, it's all evidence that the group's approach isn't helping the Republican cause. He had advice for conservatives in other states where Kirk says he wants to expand the model that Turning Point has built up in Arizona.

"The same advice I'd give to people who're thinking about starting smoking. Don't do it. It's bad for you," he said. "This looks cool. Sounds fun. All these people are doing it. It's not good for you."