Despite occasional reports of tension with campus chapters or lower-than-expected turnout at events, Turning Point is adamant that the surge of support after Kirk’s assassination continues unabated. “In my role, I see all the metrics. I see all the fundraising,” Justin Streiff, Turning Point USA’s COO, told me. Measured by donations, student interest, number of employees, social media reach and other factors, “there is no slowdown. Like, I don’t even mean a little slow.”
This year Turning Point has announced a number of new programs. Its political arm, Turning Point Action, also continues to aggressively intervene in Republican politics, particularly in its back yard of Arizona, to the point that some conservative strategists and politicians there complained to me that Turning Point was elevating fanatical pro-Trump candidates who do poorly with the general electorate.
Bowyer, the COO of Turning Point Action, disagreed with that tactical analysis. “The people that you’ve talked to, whoever you talked to, they’re wholly uneducated, haven’t looked at the numbers, haven’t looked deeply into it,” he told me in his office, as I listened from across his desk, in a significantly lower chair...
