“I am Charlie Kirk.”
It’s a line emblazoned on Turning Point USA T-shirts and hats that have become hot sellers in wake of the assassination of the controversial conservative activist as he was speaking to thousands of students on a Utah college campus Sept. 10.
Republican leaders in Pennsylvania say the Spartacus-like sentiment also describes what they sense is happening on college campuses across the commonwealth since Kirk’s senseless murder.
Thousands of young conservatives are stepping forward — not to take Kirk’s place, they say, but to pick up his mantle of spreading Christian conservative values through open dialog and civil debate.
This story, chronicling the visceral reaction to Kirk’s killing across Pennsylvania college campuses and the longer-term implications this holds for Keystone State politics, was reported through a collaboration between PennLive and RealClear PA.
Already, Turning Point USA, the conservative youth outreach organization Kirk co-founded, has become the fastest-growing political organization on the planet in wake of Kirk’s assassination.
The group says it’s received more than 62,000 requests nationwide “from high school and college students looking to start new chapters or to get involved with an existing one.” The organization offered no details as to where the inquiries are coming from, nor how many will lead to new chapters.
Still, Trevor Taylor, chair of the Adams County Young Republicans and a GOP committee member, is certain the force multiplier effect of Kirk’s assassination is playing out in Pennsylvania, and across the country.
“Instead of one large torch carried by Charlie Kirk, you’re going to see smaller torches carried by many. This is doubling and tripling the efforts,” said Taylor, who at 31 is the same age as Kirk.
In Pennsylvania, this movement holds the potential to be a political game-changer, he added.
“I’ve had a dozen phone calls to see what I can do, what’s the next step,” Taylor said. “Other like-minded individuals are having those conversations. I’m getting phone calls from lesser-involved members, ‘What can we do?’ I think you are going to see a new, refined conservative political apparatus.”
In Pennsylvania, that apparatus — largely driven by Generation Z that was already trending right — could propel the electorally critical Keystone State from purple to pink to red in coming years, Taylor said.
“Right now, we are a pink state,” he said. “We still have more registered Democrats than Republicans. But that margin is less than 50,000 voters. This is really going to help narrow that gap.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have broadly condemned the political violence that took Kirk’s life, while also criticizing some of his rhetoric on race, sexual orientation, guns and social issues, and expressing discomfort with the conservative groundswell to deify him.
At 26, Matt Zupon is squarely in the Gen Z cohort, a demographic encompassing those aged 18-29.
As a chairman of the Blair County Republican Committee and the statewide grassroots director for Pennsylvania Young Republicans, he’s witnessed his generation’s political impact firsthand.
The 2024 election returns showed President Donald Trump captured 57% of male Gen Z voters nationwide. In Pennsylvania, Kirk’s visit to Penn State helped drive a 35% swing to Trump at a key university precinct in just a four-year span, according to an analysis by VoteHub.
Zupon now believes Kirk’s assassination holds the potential to cement Gen Z as one of the most conservative generations ever.
The seeds of this were planted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which Zupon says was used as an excuse to rob young people of their high school proms and graduations and their on-campus rites of passage at college. That drove them to Christianity and the church as the one place they could gather and find a sense of belonging.
Kirk tapped into this “cultural and religious shift” among young people, Zupon said.
‘Someone we all liked’
In Charlie, many young people saw someone who embodied everything America used to promise but now seemed out of reach for them: A spouse, family, happy home and an ability to have one’s voice heard in an effort to improve the country, Zupon said.
In an instant, an assassin’s bullet took all that away.
“We saw someone we all liked and represented assassinated in cold blood in one of the most gruesome, horrific ways,” Zupon said. “It’s taught a lot of us that we’re here and we need to carry on this work. We will take up Charlie’s sword and continue his battle.”
While Zupon said he believes college campuses will trend more conservative, he stopped short of making any broader pronouncements about Pennsylvania politics.
“The political context is you’re going to have a lot of people Charlie Kirk spoke to solidifying their support,” he said. “The real question moving forward is do they turn out (and vote).”
On college campuses, emotions remained raw.
Gianni Matteo, statewide chairman of the Pennsylvania College Republicans, said it’s too early to talk about the political impact of Kirk’s killing.
His home campus — Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove — remains in shock. They’re still mourning.
“I haven’t thought about the politics once,” the 21-year-old senior said. “I’m thinking about mending broken hearts right now. It’s tough. It’s really tough.”
Tough because, though Kirk never visited Susquehanna and there’s no Turning Point chapter there, everyone felt they knew him, Matteo said.
“They saw him every day (on social media). Whether you enjoyed his content or not, you knew his mannerisms and how he joked around,” Matteo said. “A large part of my student body really admired what he did — just to get up and start a conversation.”
They witnessed his assassination the same way — on social media.
The bloody viral video of a bullet tearing a hole in Kirk’s neck spread across campus like wildfire, Matteo said.
“Everyone saw the video,” he said, insisting this intimacy made it different from the 1960s political assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcom X.
For Kirk’s target audience of young people, this was personal, Matteo said.
“What I saw on Wednesday was a mass trauma response. I got calls from people across campus and across the state, just sobbing,” he said. “It has been incredibly, incredibly impactful for young people who had to watch that video.”
As the initial shock dissipates, it’s being replaced by resolve and a rising sense of outrage.
‘Ballots, not bullets’
Penn State Harrisburg launched its Turning Point USA chapter at the beginning of the semester. When Seth Wright, chair of undergraduate Political Science and Public Policy programs, agreed to serve as the group’s adviser, he had no inkling of the events about to unfold.
Wright was putting the finishing touches on the campus’s Constitution Day activities and awaiting confirmation from the invited guest lecturer when news of Kirk’s assassination broke.
While there are echoes of similar events in history, Wright was left stunned by the brazen shooting — then worried for his son, who’s studying in Utah.
“I grappled with deep disbelief that such violence could touch a college campus,” he said. “I immediately reached out to my own son to check on his safety. Thankfully, he was not in attendance.”
In that moment, “relief sat right beside grief,” Wright said.
Later that evening, the Constitution Day speaker sent his confirmation, and the event drew more than 100 students later that week. The ceaseless work of safeguarding foundational rights like freedom of speech goes on, he said.
Above all, Wright vowed, “My commitment to advise the Turning Point chapter is resolute.”
A couple of hours southeast at Villanova University, Andrew Smith, president of the College Republicans, said Kirk’s killing has ignited not just resolve, but a rising sense of anger.
“I know a lot of people have reached a level of outrage. He (Kirk) was murdered for having a political dialogue with people. This is unacceptable,” said Smith, 21, a senior.
In the days since the assassination, Smith said he’s sensed broad condemnation — from his 7,000 Villanova classmates across the political spectrum and, notably, from professors.
“Any decent person should feel outrage. Charlie Kirk was an innocent man who got murdered for speaking his mind,” Smith said. “We solve issues with ballots, not bullets. You don’t kill people over politics.”
But at the 2,200-student Susquehanna University, Kirk’s assassination has exposed campus divisions, according to Matteo.
The first gut punch was Kirk’s killing, he said. The second was the gleeful reaction to his assassination by some — he estimated about 30% — of classmates.
“As people are watching and in shock, they see their classmates laughing, gloating, saying he deserved it,” Matteo said.
An on-campus vigil for Kirk held last week drew a small counter protest, complete with signs labeling the outspoken conservative a “Nazi.”
The arrest of shooting suspect Tyler Robinson has added another layer of outrage.
At its source is the word “fascist,” which Matteo says has been thrown around all too flippantly by Democrat leaders and the media. According to the FBI, Robinson also scrawled it on one of his bullets intended for Kirk: “Here fascist! CATCH.”
Matteo insists that word made Kirk’s assassination all but inevitable.
“What is the purpose of calling someone a fascist? It’s vilification. There’s an implicit threat of violence. You can’t defeat a fascist through democratic means,” he said.
The fascist label isn’t just applied to Kirk. It’s aimed at his followers, as well, Matteo added.
“They are calling you a fascist, too, if you enjoy Charlie Kirk’s content,” he said. The implication is, they want you dead, too, he added.
“I’m seriously afraid,” Matteo said. “There is a very short line between you calling me a fascist and getting shot in the throat. There is no way to stop a fascist other than what happened to Mr. Kirk. We reject that. Our way is speech. Our way is the ballot box.”
With some classmates revealing what Matteo described as their “macabre embrace of Kirk’s brutal execution,” he said it’s up to conservatives to uphold civility.
“What does that say about our future when people are gloating? What does that say about America? It all comes back to the term fascist. To the demonization. To the vilification. There needs to be some accountability for this,” he said.
‘Emotional impact’
Albert Eisenberg, principal of the GOP messaging firm Red Bridge who also heads the PA Republicanos PAC that focuses on registering young Hispanics, said he was conducting a multi-state voter registration drive when Kirk was shot to death.
The reaction of his grassroots coordinator, whose parents fled tyranny in Cuba, was chilling.
“‘This reminds me of what happened in places like Cuba’,” Eisenberg quoted the coordinator as saying.
Abhorrence of political violence will be another avenue to bring young minorities into the conservative fold, he said.
“As a strategist who works with young voters, we need to be aware that there’s a lot of voters who could be on our side who are very sensitive to political instability, authoritarianism, etc. — all the things they or their parents fled coming to our shores,” Eisenberg said. He added: “I think that’s what Charlie Kirk would’ve wanted.”
Kiele Cabrera, a Florida International University Turning Points chapter member, was in northeast Pennsylvania meeting with Latino students of various political persuasions when video of Kirk’s killing went viral.
As Cabrera broke into tears, she said she found comfort as young Latinos from both sides of the aisle “expressed their frustration and disillusionment with the political violence in the country.“
“They were emotionally impacted,” she said of the students. “They were saddened.”
Cabrera said celebration of and support for Kirk’s assassination stems from “a vocal minority of young leftist college students.” But for the vast majority, she said, “This is something that pulled us together and can pull people together to fix things.”
‘Is this a turning point?’
What’s not an option, according to all the young conservatives PennLive interviewed, is remaining silent.
“What people are energized to do is speak their minds and continue to live Mr. Kirk’s legacy — and America’s legacy. Being able to voice your opinion. Not being intimidated. Not being silenced,” Matteo said.
At Villanova, Smith said he’s been fielding calls from students looking to get involved.
“People know who I am on campus, so they’re asking: ‘Are we doing anything? Is this a turning point?’” he said.
In the days since the assassination, 110 Villanova students added their names to a list to start a Turning Point chapter on campus, Smith said.
“I looked through the membership. There’s a lot of people I don’t know,” he said. “It gives you hope there is a larger amount of people who feel outraged. It’s impressive.”
What there won’t be is another Charlie Kirk.
“Nobody can fill Charlie Kirk’s shoes. Nobody,” Matteo insisted. Instead, students are soul searching over “how can they help fulfill Charlie Kirk’s legacy,” he said.
“Why did they shoot Charlie Kirk? I think it’s because he was someone who openly wanted a conversation. He openly challenged people in the marketplace of ideas,” Matteo explained.
“We understood that it wasn’t just about murdering Charlie Kirk. It was about murdering someone who wanted a conversation at a college campus. They may have silenced Charlie. But people are done with being silenced. We’re not going to stop. We’re not going to ever stop advocating for free speech,” he vowed.
This is the awakening, young conservatives say.
Where it leads politically and the impact it has on purple Pennsylvania remains to be seen.
Editor’s note: Oliver Bateman, a contributing writer to RealClear Pennsylvania, provided reporting for this story.