Per week after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Turning Level USA’s chief working officer made a prediction.
“Charlie Kirk got here and transformed the younger males. Erika Kirk is coming to transform the younger girls,” Tyler Bowyer wrote on X. It raked in almost 100,000 likes and has been reposted near 9,000 instances.
That forecast accompanied the information that Erika Kirk would assume her late husband’s function as CEO and chair of his conservative nonprofit, a pressure on school campuses credited with luring so many Gen Z males to far-right politics in an election that despatched President Donald Trump again to the White Home.
Headlines pondering the likelihood ensued. “In Erika Kirk, conservative girls see the longer term,” CNN wrote the subsequent day. “Republicans hope Erika Kirk can deliver extra younger girls into the get together,” NBC News ran weeks later. They featured interviews with younger conservative girls and Republican strategists ― lots of them suggesting Turning Level might use Erika Kirk as a conduit to succeed in Gen Z girls.
Turning Level USA didn’t reply when requested if it had seen extra curiosity from younger girls since Erika Kirk took over. It additionally didn’t reply to requests for an interview together with her.
MANDEL NGAN through Getty Photographs
The truth, specialists within the younger voting bloc say, is that younger girls actually aren’t shopping for the narrative that Erika Kirk has been peddling: that they’d be happier leaving their careers behind, getting married younger, having kids and “submitting” to their husbands.
“I actually assume that Erica Kirk might be a robust chief, bringing in additional younger girls than, maybe, have been part of the Turning Level motion thus far, however I don’t suspect we’re going to see a large shift proper amongst younger girls anytime quickly,” mentioned Rachel Janfaza, founding father of the Gen Z analysis and technique agency The Up and Up.
Dr. Corey Seemiller, a generational skilled who’s written six books about Gen Z, agreed, saying she doesn’t count on Erika Kirk to be some form of “huge draw” to younger girls, particularly “if she continues to place forth the identical message that Charlie Kirk did.”
“The messaging that’s resonating with Gen Z girls is de facto completely different than the messaging that’s resonated with Gen Z males,” she famous, saying the demographic is shaping as much as have one of many largest political gender divides in generations.
“Can Erica Kirk be that very same factor? I don’t assume girls are in search of that.”
– Corey Seemiller, generational skilled
That’s evident from current elections. In 2024, younger girls ages 18-29 selected then-Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by an 18-point margin. Males in that age group swung considerably the opposite method, selecting Trump over Harris by a 14-point margin.
Key to Charlie Kirk’s success luring younger males to MAGA was his “shock enchantment,” Seemiller mentioned. “Charlie Kirk didn’t maintain again, and younger males had been like, ‘Sure, lastly, somebody’s saying one thing for me. He’s talking my language.’”
“Can Erica Kirk be that very same factor?” she requested. “I don’t assume girls are in search of that.”
What Gen Z girls truly care about
Throughout the political spectrum, Gen Z girls have very completely different emotions about marriage, kids and metrics for fulfillment than each Erika Kirk and their male counterparts do.
“This concept of discovering that accomplice since you don’t need to undergo life solo is certainly not one thing girls are embracing in bulk, by any stretch,” Seemiller mentioned of Gen Z girls.
Current knowledge she’s gathered confirmed that whereas 23% of Gen Z males mentioned they needed to get married to keep away from being alone, simply 13% of ladies in that age group mentioned the identical.
And amongst members of Gen Z who mentioned they don’t need to get married, 56% of ladies cited a need to be unbiased, in comparison with simply 41% of males, her knowledge confirmed. Amongst that group, 24% of ladies cited an opposition to combining funds, whereas simply 17% of males mentioned the identical.
“We’re not seeing any indicators that these girls are leaning on these ‘head of family’ males who would maintain them financially,” Seemiller noticed.
Brad Vest through Getty Photographs
Even inside Turning Level’s goal demographic of younger, right-leaning voters, the variations in women and men’s priorities are astounding ― particularly in relation to one of many Kirks’ largest mandates: have kids.
In September, an NBC News poll that broke down Gen Z’s priorities by each intercourse and Trump vs. Harris, voters discovered that whereas Gen Z males who voted for Trump ranked having kids as their No. 1 marker of success, their feminine counterparts ranked it sixth amongst their 13 decisions. And whereas these males ranked being married fourth, these feminine Trump voters ranked it ninth.
In one other twist, Gen Z girls who voted for Trump ranked reaching monetary independence increased than each teams of males and feminine Harris voters, putting it at No. 1.
The findings observe with what Janfaza hears within the gatherings she holds with younger voters.
“I hear in my listening classes with Gen Z girls a robust give attention to monetary stability and monetary freedom as the highest factor that they’re prioritizing when they give thought to metrics for fulfillment of their future,” she mentioned.
It doesn’t seem to be Erika Kirk grasps any of that. In a recent interview, she appeared totally perplexed that so many younger girls voted for New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a candidate who ran on affordability and America’s cost-of-living disaster. In remarks that had been broadly panned on social media, she referred to as the Democrat’s victory “so ironic and so fascinating” and mused that younger girls had been asking issues of their authorities they need to be looking for from a wedding.
“What I don’t need to have occur is girls, younger girls, within the metropolis look to the federal government as an answer,” she mentioned. “To place off having a household or a wedding, since you’re counting on the federal government to help you, as a substitute of being united with a husband, the place you may help your self and your husband can help [you], and also you guys can all mix collectively.”
Authenticity issues to younger folks — loads
There’s an elephant within the room working in opposition to Erika Kirk.
Earlier than turning into the CEO of a nonprofit with tens of millions of dollars in assets and making multiple media appearances a week, Erika Kirk lectured younger girls on the significance of being a “helpmate” to their husbands as a substitute of specializing in their very own careers.
“Your husband needs to be the one which goes out into the world and builds and battles and comes house. Conquers,” she mentioned in an April 2025 episode of “The Charlie Kirk Present” whereas sitting subsequent to her husband. “[He] comes house and is like, ‘That is my nest egg, that is what I labored so arduous for,’ and the spouse is like, ‘Welcome house, babe, no matter you want, we’re right here.’”
Even earlier than becoming CEO, she was a businesswoman with a podcast, a clothes line and a number of levels.
Throughout an look onstage at a Turning Level USA occasion over the summer time, she cautioned it wasn’t “splendid” to get married after 30 and that it’s “not most likely the perfect statistical-odd place.”
“Anybody trying to join with Gen Z must be actual and clear about their day-to-day, how they spend their time and their very own priorities.”
– Rachel Janfaza, Gen Z strategist
Erika Kirk was 32 when she married Charlie Kirk, who was 5 years her junior.
That’s a hypocrisy that won’t jive with younger girls or males.
“Younger folks as an entire, particularly Gen Z, are about authenticity,” Leela Robust, the director of Tufts’ Middle for Data & Analysis on Civic Studying and Engagement, a analysis group targeted on youth civic engagement, instructed HuffPost.
“They need candidates and figureheads who can converse to substantive points,” who perceive “these points they’ve personally skilled,” she mentioned.
Seemiller agreed, saying the burden Gen Z offers to authenticity from leaders is without doubt one of the “largest findings” concerning the age group.
Janfaza emphasised the identical: “Anybody trying to join with Gen Z must be actual and clear about their day-to-day, how they spend their time and their very own priorities.”
Younger girls are additionally experiencing the creep of “tradwife” content on social media from creators “making tens of millions of {dollars} by encouraging folks to not earn money,” Seemiller noticed, and it’s probably not touchdown with them.
“Gen Z girls are seeing proper by way of that,” she mentioned.
She expects Turning Level USA will ultimately try and package deal the incongruence.
“It’ll be spun to be that she believes on this a lot that she has to get different folks to do it,” Seemiller mentioned. Or, she predicted, they are going to emphasize her husband’s demise, pushing a story that “she wouldn’t have stepped up, however as a result of her husband died, she feels a calling to maintain the mission going.”
Erika Kirk hasn’t addressed the hypocrisy criticisms. However at a current CBS city corridor look, she asserted her authenticity.
“We’re absolutely clear,” she mentioned when speaking about her choice to provide a dwell assertion following Charlie Kirk’s taking pictures.
“What you see,” she promised, “is what you get.”
