Erika Kirk and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance embrace at the Ole Miss Pavilion on the University of Mississippi campus on October 29 in Oxford, Mississippi during a Turning Point USA event honoring Kirk’s husband, the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
- Erika Kirk, widow of murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, endorsed JD Vance for president in 2028.
- This approval comes as the Trump movement begins to look beyond 2024, creating internal divisions.
- Kirk, who was 31 when he was shot dead in a political assassination on a Utah college campus, founded Turning Point USA and was known for challenging young people in campus debates and helping mobilize young conservative voters.
The widow of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has endorsed JD Vance for 2028 president, kicking off the White House race early and backing the influential youth organization founded by her husband.
Erika Kirk, whose Turning Point USA husband was a key player in mobilizing young people to vote for Donald Trump in 2024, told thousands of attendees that she supported the vice president to become the 48th president.
“We’re going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected in the most resounding way possible among 48-year-olds,” she said Thursday evening at AmericaFest, Turning Point’s first major gathering since Charlie Kirk was killed.
Vance will speak at the meeting on Sunday.
The approval comes as the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement begins to look toward a future without Trump.
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Vance has not yet committed to running in 2028, but he is widely expected to run.
An early show of support from a group that has become increasingly powerful within the movement could help create momentum that makes a Vance candidacy seem inevitable.
But it also comes at a time when the fractures in the MAGA movement are becoming increasingly apparent, and when some key figures are beginning to express their frustration and disillusionment with Trump.
Last month, incendiary Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene launched a blistering attack on Trump’s second-term agenda, which she said betrayed voters.
Greene, until recently one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, has said she will leave Congress in January, with some commentators speculating she could make a move in 2028.
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Other figures on the right, including white nationalist Nick Fuentes, also appear to want to lay claim to the crown.
Vance was close to Charlie Kirk in the months and years before he was shot dead on a college campus in Utah, in a political assassination that shocked America and left conservatives in shocked mourning.
The vice president flew to Utah to comfort Erika Kirk and to accompany Charlie Kirk’s body to the couple’s home in Arizona.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance (R), second lady Usha Vance (C) and Erika Kirk leave Air Force Two as they escort the body of Charlie Kirk on September 11 in Phoenix, Arizona.Footage showed Vance walking with the box as it was loaded onto Air Force Two.
Charlie Kirk, 31, was a talented speaker who toured college campuses challenging young people to debates on current issues.
Edited clips of these confrontations helped build a large social media following, which he turned into a movement seeking to mobilize young voters on right-wing issues.
A month after his death, Trump posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, calling the young activist a “martyr for truth and freedom.”
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