One way Charlie Kirk's assassination could affect the 2026 midterms
The reaction to Kirk's death could encourage turnout among right-leaning young people, broadly a group that's far less likely to vote in a midterm than older Americans
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The Frontrunner: Could turnout rise among young Republican voters after Charlie Kirk’s assassination?
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📊 The Frontrunner 📈
Could turnout rise among young Republican voters after Charlie Kirk’s assassination?
Quick summary:
Charlie Kirk was most familiar to young people and Republicans, highly regarded by conservatives, and closely connected with young people via his podcast.
Young voters turn out to vote at much lower rates, but Republicans see early signs that the fallout from Kirk’s death might energize younger conservatives.
Recent voter registration data show GOP gains and Democratic losses among young voters, trends that could interact with increased youth engagement.
On Sept. 10, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. The 31-year old political activist held a prominent place in the modern conservative movement, and his death has sparked an intense conversation about the dangers of political violence in American society.
But his death raises another question: how might the memorialization of Kirk influence politics going forward? After all, tragic events have long affected our political life. Just consider President Lyndon Johnson’s use of the memory of his assassinated predecessor, President John F. Kennedy, to help pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is not to ghoulishly compare assassinations, but to acknowledge that Kirk, too, may play a posthumous political role.
Case in point, Republicans plan to feature Kirk heavily in messaging aimed at encouraging conservative turnout in the 2026 midterm elections. And while it’s difficult to say how much Kirk’s memorialization could influence the midterms, one possibility is that it could affect turnout among younger right-leaning voters. Kirk’s popularity among younger conservatives could dovetail with young voters’ recent rightward political trajectory to generate greater participation among young people than we typically see in midterm elections. That, at least, will be the GOP’s hope.
For starters, Kirk was best-known among younger Americans and Republicans. A survey from YouGov/The Economist conducted just after his death found that young people and Republicans were the most likely to say they were familiar with Kirk before his death. Overall, 63% of those aged 18-29 said they were very or somewhat familiar with Kirk, higher than among older age groups. And 74% of Republicans or independents who leaned toward the GOP said they were familiar with Kirk, compared with 45% of Democrats/Democratic leaners and 46% of independents.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans were far and away the most likely to have a favorable opinion of Kirk. In the YouGov/Economist poll, 76% of Republicans and GOP leaners had a very or somewhat favorable view of the late political activist, compared with 4% of Democrats/Democratic leaners and 18% of independents.
Of course, a poll conducted right after Kirk’s death may not reflect earlier attitudes, but other earlier surveys support the idea that conservatives, including young ones, already held a high opinion of Kirk. Conducted in March 2025, the Harvard Institute of Politics Youth Poll found that among Republicans aged 18 to 29 who had an opinion of Kirk, about 3 in 4 viewed him favorably. Now, only 41% of GOP respondents (and 36% of all respondents) said they had an opinion of him in this survey, so Kirk may not have been as well-known as the posthumous YouGov/Economist poll suggests. Still, young Republicans familiar with Kirk held a very positive view of him, especially young men, who overall (so among all respondents) were twice as likely to hold a favorable opinion of Kirk than young women (18% vs. 9%).
Kirk’s podcast presence served as a major conduit of engagement for young conservatives. An Axios/Generation Lab survey of 18-to-34 year olds found in February 2025 that 7% of respondents said they listened to “The Charlie Kirk Show” at least once per month, which put it behind only “The Daily” from The New York Times (12%) among politics-focused podcasts.1 But among young Trump voters, 19% said they listened to Kirk’s show, second only to “The Joe Rogan Experience” (27%) — the latter of which is the most listened-to podcast in the country.
All of this points to the possibility that Kirk’s stature could energize younger conservatives. Meaning, campaign messaging and memorialization involving Kirk might boost turnout among this group of voters, which would not be a small thing. Broadly speaking, young voters consistently turn out at lower rates than their older brethren across all elections.
Just consider turnout data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey for the 2022 and 2024 elections. Among the citizen voting-age population, turnout rates fell below 60% in 2024 for those 29 years or younger, and beneath 40% in the 2022 midterms. Starting around the age-55 mark, though, around 70% or more voted in 2024 and around 60% or more in 2022.
Notice that the 2022-2024 turnout gap grew as voters got younger and younger. This shows how young voters usually exert even less influence in midterms than in presidential contests. The midterm electorate typically looks older, whiter, and more educated than those who show up for presidential elections, as the long-term tendency for people with these traits to vote at a higher rate gets turbocharged in an environment that has lower overall turnout.
One way to show how the electorate’s age makeup changes from presidential to midterm years is to reconfigure the turnout data in 2022-24 to show how many voters come from different age groups. In 2024, 18-29s made up an estimated 16.5% of the electorate, whereas they constituted just 12.6% of the 2022 electorate. Conversely, 60-69s made up almost 18% of the 2024 electorate, but a whopping 20% of 2022 voters.
But GOP campaigns are hoping that Kirk’s death and memory could motivate lower-propensity young voters to turn out in the 2026 midterms. Turning Point USA, the group focused on conservative youth engagement founded by Kirk, told NOTUS last week that it had received 54,000 requests from high school and college students to found or join TPUSA chapters at their schools. Additionally, NOTUS’s reporting suggested there may also be an accompanying uptick in volunteer rates and small-dollar donations to 2025 races for governor in places like Virginia.
Whether such engagement will continue into 2026, and whether it turns into more GOP votes remains to be seen. But it’s not hard to imagine Kirk references showing up repeatedly in ads and voter appeals aimed at young voters in the months to come. And if Kirk-based appeals were to increase turnout among right-leaning young voters, the effect could combine with recent shifts in partisan affiliation among young Americans to produce a windfall of votes for the GOP.
Decision Desk HQ’s Data Science Team recently found a sharply pro-Republican trend in voter registration among 18-to-29 year olds, a group constituted almost entirely by members of Generation Z (often defined as those born after 1996). This was especially true among young men under 30, who exhibited a noticeable decline in Democratic registration, especially compared to women in the same age group. Looking just at white voters under 30 who were registered with the two major parties on Jan. 1, 2025, only about 37% of men were registered Democrats, compared with around 56% of women.2
But the decline in Democratic registration was most apparent among the very youngest white voters. Among those ages 18 to 24, only about one-third were registered as Democrats, including only about 3 in 10 voters aged 18 to 20. The very youngest women also dropped below 50% Democratic registration. Now, young voters of any race or ethnicity are more likely to register as unaffiliated or as something besides Democratic or Republican, so that is an added complication with voter registration numbers. However, white men under 25 are basically the most Republican-leaning age group by party registration if we only look at voters registered with the two main parties.
This trend in GOP preference was not apparent among only young white men, but also among young men of color. Although voters of color are broadly more Democratic than white voters, the very youngest voters registered with the two major parties are getting closer to 50-50 in their party registration: As of Jan. 1, fewer than 60% of nonwhite men who were 18 to 20 were registered Democrats across two-party registration.
Since Kirk’s appeal was strongest among young men, it’s plausible that Kirk’s profile and memory could strike a chord with some of the youngest voters in the electorate just as the GOP has gained markedly among those voters.
***
To be clear, none of this guarantees a Republican surge among young voters in the 2026 midterms. Midterm elections tend to be mostly about the sitting president’s administration, particularly the president’s job approval rating. At present, President Donald Trump’s approval is in the mid-40s, which historically would put Trump in territory where Republicans would likely lose ground in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Additionally, voters who identify with the party not in the White House are, all else being equal, more likely to vote in a midterm than voters who associate with the president’s party. In theory, higher turnout among young Republican-leaning voters could help close that gap for the GOP. Yet young conservatives who hold an opinion of Kirk are probably more highly-engaged to begin with. As such, it’s hard to say how much Kirk-based messaging might turn out lower-propensity, less-engaged youngsters.
But the potential is there for Kirk’s death and memory to influence young people, a lower-propensity voting group, to show up in a midterm election. In a country that is closely-divided, elections are often about small shifts in support among different groups. And a higher-than-expected showing from young voters on the right could matter in 2026, when turnout will be lower than it was in the 2024 presidential race.
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📆 Around the Corner 📌
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71% of respondents said they didn’t listen to any of the listed options or political podcasts in general.
Based on the 31 states that report party affiliation in voter registration.
Dem leadership needs to tailor a message of economic fear. Fear that Trump is dismantling the business and regulatory structure that could lead to the loss of all of our retirement savings. The destruction of the dollar as a fiat currency but in layman’s terms. Fuck Charlie Kirk. He was a horrible person. Just atrack Trump on economic fears and Epstein. Attack. Attack. Stop being whimps. And attack apartheid Israel. Young voters will respond to that.