DALLAS — The legacy of Charlie Kirk loomed over the GOP midterm convention as Republicans honored the slain Turning Point USA founder for his bold faith and political instincts. The 31-year-old Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and ally of President Donald Trump, was fatally shot on Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at an outdoor Turning Point USA campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Lucas Miles, vice president of TPUSA Faith, addressed the crowd at the American Airlines Center last Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of Kirk’s death, while declaring that the organization’s mission continues to expand. “There is a peculiar mistake that men make when they try to silence the truth,” he said. “They imagine that the voice speaking it is the source of it. A voice can be silenced, but the truth cannot.
A man can be taken from his post, but if he spends his life awakening courage in other men, his absence may accomplish the very thing his enemies intended to prevent. For sometimes the silencing of one voice does not produce silence at all. It produces an echo.
And if the voice was true enough and the conviction deep enough, the echo becomes a chorus.” In the days since his assassination, Kirk’s influence, said Miles, has only gained in influence. “One year later, there is something wonderfully defiant about the fact that his voice has not grown quieter,” he said.
“It has multiplied.” According to Miles, TPUSA now boasts more than 1,500 collegiate chapters, more than 3,500 high school chapters, over 200,000 college student activists, over 58,000 high school student activists, more than 12,000 pastors, over 25 million social media followers, and more than 11.2 billion all-time views of its digital content.