In her opening remarks at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference, CEO Erika Kirk endorsed Vice President J.D. Vance for president in 2028.
“We are going to get my husband’s friend, J.D. Vance, elected ’48’ in the most resounding way possible,” Charlie Kirk’s widow told the crowd of thousands Thursday, referring to the number of the next president.
While Mr. Vance has not publicly said he would run for president, he is the de facto option to pass the torch to after President Trump’s term expires.
Ms. Kirk’s early endorsement paves the way for significant backing from a powerful conservative organization, particularly one that mobilizes Republican youth. Such optimism from the group — the crowd erupted in applause before Ms. Kirk could get the second half of her sentence out — could indicate growing GOP influence in the presidential primary to favor Mr. Vance.
This is not the first time Ms. Kirk has thrown her support behind a Vance presidency.
In late November, she said that her late husband was supportive of Mr. Vance running for president.
“That was the thing that my husband was very direct about, it was, interestingly enough, one of the last few conversations we had was how intentional he was about supporting J.D. for ’28,” Ms. Kirk said on political commentator Megyn Kelly’s live show.
The vice president and Ms. Kirk’s late husband were close friends before the conservative activist was shot and killed in September.
Before Kirk’s death, he told POLITICO in July that Mr. Vance was “doing a masterful job of having the president’s back” and rallying MAGA to stick together in 2028.
Although the vice president has not given any significant indication of a presidential run, he told Fox News in November that he’s focused on his job as the president’s right-hand man and the upcoming midterm elections. He did add, however, that he would sit down with Mr. Trump to discuss the possibility of a presidential run.
“We will win the midterms, do everything we can, and then after that I’m going to sit down with the president and talk to him about it,” Mr. Vance said earlier this month.
The vice president is scheduled to close out the annual four-day conference in Phoenix Sunday.
While Ms. Kirk’s endorsement seemingly united the MAGA fanbase, some of the most influential conservatives clashed at the conference.
Podcaster Ben Shapiro, the first speaker after Ms. Kirk, warned that the “conservative movement is in serious danger.”
He said the right is threatened by “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”
