PHOENIX>> Camdyn Glover used to be a quiet conservative. She worried what her teachers would think or if she would lose friends over her convictions. But she said something changed when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, and she started crying in her classroom at Indiana University while other students cheered and clapped.

“We can’t be silenced,” Glover decided.

Now she’s visiting Phoenix with her parents and brothers for this year’s Turning Point USA conference, the first to take place since Kirk’s death. Although the organization became a political phenomenon with its masculine appeals to college men, it also has been expanding outreach to young women such as Glover. The shift is poised to accelerate now that Turning Point is led by Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, who has embraced her new role at the helm of a conservative juggernaut with chapters across the country.

If successful, the organization that helped return President Donald Trump to the White House could narrow a gender divide that has been a persistent challenge for Republicans.

Turning Point offers a blend of traditional values, such as encouraging women to prioritize marriage over careers, and health trends that have become popular online.

On Friday young women lined up for selfies with wellness influencer Alex Clark while vendors sold health products and Trump merchandise. One of Clark’s fans had a “Make America Pro-Life Again” hat and “MAHA red” lipgloss, a reference to the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Another attendee sported a “grass-fed conservative” pin on her lanyard.

Glover, 18, said discovering Turning Point in high school gave her an appreciation for dialogue when she felt like an outcast for her beliefs, such as being anti-abortion. At her first conference, she feels like she has found a political and cultural home for herself.

“They want to promote a strong independent woman who does hold these values and can go stand up for herself,” she said. “But it’s also OK to do it in heels, put some makeup on, wear a dress.”

Empowering

One of Glover’s classmates, Stella Ross, said she stumbled upon Charlie Kirk on TikTok in the months before the last presidential election.

She felt like her perspectives were being treated differently on campus and thought she was receiving unfairly low grades in her political science classes. A devout Catholic, Ross said she was inspired by how Charlie Kirk wasn’t afraid to weave his evangelical faith into his political arguments.

She also noticed how many women posted comments of appreciation on Erika Kirk’s videos, and she joined Indiana University’s Turning Point chapter in the same month that Trump won his comeback campaign. “I was like, wow, if Erika can do it, I can do it,” Ross said.

Ross has career aspirations of her own — she interns with Indiana’s Republican Party and aspires to be a press secretary for a governor or president. But she hopes to have flexibility in her job to be fully present with her children and believes that a traditional nuclear structure — man, woman and their children — is “God’s plan.”

When she thinks of Erika Kirk, “it’s really cool to see that she can live out that balance and it makes me feel like that could be a more realistic future for me because I’m seeing it firsthand.”

A new messenger

Erika Kirk often appeared alongside her husband at Turning Point events. A former beauty pageant winner who has worked as a model, actress and casting director, she also founded a Christian clothing line and a ministry.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, she said she had fully bought into “boss babe” culture before Charlie showed her a “healthier” perspective on life. Now she leads the multimillion-dollar organization, which she said at a memorial for her husband would be made “10 times greater through the power of his memory.”

The political gap between young men and women has been growing for years, according to a recent Gallup analysis. Not only have women under 30 become more likely to identify as ideologically liberal, they also have embraced liberal views on issues such as abortion, the environment and gun laws.

The schism was clearly apparent in the last presidential election, where 57% of male voters under 30 supported Trump, compared with only 41% of women under 30, according to AP VoteCast.

Turning Point has been working to change that, hosting events like the Young Women’s Leadership Summit and urging attendees to embrace traditional family values and gender roles.

Charlie Kirk said earlier this year that if a young woman’s priority is to find a husband, she should go to college for a “MRS degree.” Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric at University of North Georgia, said Erika Kirk could be a more effective messenger because she was focused on her career before meeting her husband.

“I do think her story resonates more because she tried it out and can tell them it is not for them,” he said.