The first brick in Turning Point’s “red wall” crumbled an hour after the polls closed on Tuesday night, when Democrat Chris Pappas crushed the Republican in New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate race.
Then the whole thing fell apart.
Voters soundly rejected Turning Point Action-backed candidates in states across the country in the Nov. 3 midterm election. From Arizona to New Hampshire to Nevada and beyond, the Republican conservative network got politically pummeled.
Across three states where Turning Point invested the most, Republicans scored only one statewide win. Candidates they pushed through contentious Republican primaries got a general election shellacking.
“Cancer kills,” said Brian Murray, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party.
It’s clear that President Donald Trump’s sinking approval rating brought on a nationwide blue wave. Voters are fed up with the cost of living and the unpopular war in Iran.
But there’s no political group more closely aligned with the president. And in races where Turning Point played kingmaker and lost, Republicans were happy to put the blame squarely on the Phoenix-based organization as the election results rolled in on Tuesday night.
“The voters have once again demonstrated, LOUDLY, that they will not support Turning Point Action candidates,” said Gina Swoboda, former chair of the Arizona Republican Party. She was defeated by Turning Point-backed state Rep. Alex Kolodin in the primary for Arizona secretary of state.
Arizona Democrats are on track to have a trifecta at the state Capitol for the first time since the 1960s. Both Republicans whom Turning Point boosted in swing U.S. House districts are trailing their Democratic opponents.
Turning Point-aligned GOP U.S. Rep. Eli Crane is hanging on by a thread in a district that Trump won by 15 percentage points just two years ago.
The state’s blue wave went so far down the ballot that even the Arizona mine inspector is on track to be a Democrat for the first time in half a century.
“I don’t know who – Turning Point? I don’t really know who you’re talking about,” Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said on Nov. 4, taking a victory lap after he defeated Kolodin.
“Clearly they didn’t have the impact that they thought they would,” he said with a grin.
In interviews, Republican political watchers said there wasn’t much the party could have done to overcome the tide that remade Arizona politics overnight, but candidates whom Turning Point pushed through primaries only made things worse.
It was the organization’s first major political test since its co-founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated a year ago.
“Turning Point bears almost singular responsibility for shaping the primary elections that delivered these losing candidates,” said Tyler Montague, an anti-Trump Republican activist in Mesa.
Perhaps Turning Point’s biggest race was the battle for Arizona governor. The group spent $18 million to boost U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, after they pushed him through an ugly Republican primary.
Trump had initially endorsed Republican Karrin Taylor Robson for governor from Turning Point’s own “AmericaFest” stage in 2024. His trusted consultants staffed up her campaign.
Then, when Turning Point threw its support behind Biggs a few months later, Trump chimed in with a dual endorsement. It was only a matter of time before Trump’s allies ghosted her and Taylor Robson dropped out of the race.
Retiring swing congressional district Rep. David Schweikert, R-Arizona, threw his hat in the ring and ran on an anti-Turning Point message. He lost soundly to Biggs in the July primary. (Turning Point’s candidate was on track to lose Schweikert’s open U.S. House seat to a Democrat).
Once the primary ended, though, Biggs struggled to drum up support and raise money for his general election bid.
Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars painting him as a pedophile protector, tying him to Jeffrey Epstein and raising concerns about his role in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
The rejection was swift. It took a week to call Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ victory over ex-TV anchor Kari Lake in 2022. This year, it only took 30 minutes to declare Hobbs the winner over Biggs.
“Hopefully this is a wake-up call to all those grifters that they need to stop, because when they look around at the destitute of the party, they have to look in the mirror. It’s their fault,” Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin said at a Nov. 4 board meeting.
Turning Point struggled up and down ballot
Maleah Moyer, 25, was among the voters who said they were turned off by Turning Point’s giant “Democrats for Biggs” campaign signs that were plastered around Valley intersections. The left-leaning Tempe resident called it “Turning Point propaganda.”
She voted for No Labels candidate Teri Ann Hourihan, who ran partly on a promise to investigate Turning Point for Kirk’s murder in Utah.
Turning Point also struggled down ballot, even though its allies wield influence over local GOP committees around the state.
Republicans expected a tight battle for control of the state Legislature in a handful of swing districts. They were stunned by how Democrats expanded the map.
In Mesa, the Phoenix suburb where Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point Action’s chief operating officer, lives, Turning Point-backed City Council candidate Aleks Vranicic was trailing another Republican by double digits in his conservative district’s runoff election.
There was more bad news in Phoenix, home to Turning Point’s headquarters. Turning Point supported a challenger to incumbent City Councilman Kevin Robinson, and he was far behind in the early results.
At least in northeast Phoenix, the group was bound to get something right when it endorsed all three candidates for the open City Council seat in District 2: Danny Mazza, Julie Read and Matt Evans. Scottsdale was another bright spot for Turning Point’s City Council candidates. Republicans Michelle Ugenti-Rita and Barry Graham were leading in the early returns.
But Turning Point is a national organization, not just a local one, and it was only a year ago that its leaders were gearing up for total midterm domination.
Turning Point expanded its political operation to stand up offices in “red wall” states that it said were crucial to protecting a Republican majority.
‘A total rout’ in New Hampshire
The effort targeting Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona was supposed to double as a trial run for Turning Point’s influence in the 2028 presidential race. The group endorsed Vice President JD Vance nearly a year ago.
Things didn’t go exactly as planned.
“All I saw was a bunch of misled kids who just wasted six months of their lives,” said Fergus Cullen, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party.
Turning Point hired staff and even deployed New England sports legends such as retired Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and Red Sox star Kevin Youkilis to get out the vote.
It didn’t really work, aside from Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte winning a second term.
Turning Point-backed Republican former Sen. John Sununu got smoked by Pappas in a race that was one of the first dominoes to fall in the GOP’s hope to maintain control of the U.S. Senate. A Democrat won Pappas’ open House seat, too.
Just like in Arizona, Republicans lost control of both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature. They also lost the state executive council, a body that acts as a check on the governor.
In other words, Cullen said, it was “a total rout.”
Erika Kirk says she will listen to voters and ‘study the results’
It was a similar story in Nevada. Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo lost. A Democrat will represent the state’s conservative northern congressional district for the first time ever, and the party may clinch a supermajority in the state assembly.
A spokesperson for Vance, who has not launched a 2028 bid, did not respond to a request for comment. The vice president released a 618-word statement on X declaring “the reason we lost is the war.”
Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk said she would listen to voters and “study the results” in her own 618-word statement also posted to X.
“The biggest mistake conservatives can make right now would be to allow this moment to become another exercise in finger-pointing, in-fighting, or trying to secure their own political preservation,” Kirk said.
Other Turning Point leaders left the whole debacle in God’s hands.
“God is on the throne. That doesn’t necessarily mean good things are ahead, but it’s still true,” spokesman Andrew Kolvet said on X while race after race got called for Democrats.
“Christ alone is King,” Turning Point contributor Jack Posobiec posted shortly after midnight.
A former Turning Point employee who left on bad terms after Kirk’s slaying announced she was moving to Hawaii where she would be “trading political chaos for palm trees, sunshine and a whole lot of minding my own business.”
Republicans will regroup next month at Turning Point’s annual “AmericaFest” conference in downtown Phoenix.
On the morning of the midterms, Turning Point put AmericaFest passes on sale for $20.26.
Vance and Kirk are set to speak at the December event. It will revolve around a “RESTORE THE CULTURE” theme.
Republic reporters Shawn Raymundo, Ray Stern and Harrison Mantas contributed to this article. Stephanie Murray covers national politics and the Trump administration for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. She co-hosts “The Gaggle,” The Republic’s weekly politics podcast. Reach her at stephanie.murray@usatodayco.com, on X and TikTok @stephanie_murr and on Instagram @stephaniemurray.news.
Reporting by Stephanie Murray, Arizona Republic.
Related: Amid plunging GOP enthusiasm, Turning Point USA offers $100 an hour to hold signs in NH
