Last week’s national election results were not good for Turning Point USA.
From their perspective, the “patriots” lost the elections. Like many other MAGA-inspired groups, TPUSA considers its followers patriots and everyone else traitors.
Turning Point Action posted on social media a video of American Revolution re-enactors with the headline “Remember: Patriots Have Faced Worse Odds” and a caption that reads, “King George once vowed to crush the rebels.”
In Arizona, where TPUSA is based and invested heavily in promoting GOP candidates, the dismal election results ignited a spat between the Charlie Kirk-founded organization and the family of late U.S. Sen. John McCain.
Democrats maintained control of the Arizona governor’s office and gained majorities in both houses of the state legislature. That’s the first time Democrats have wielded this much power in Arizona since the 1960s. While Republicans have controlled the legislature, they have not been able to win the governorship or a U.S. Senate seat since 2018.
Now Democrats hold all the power in the state.
Turning Point moved its headquarters to Phoenix in 2018, the same year McCain died of brain cancer. McCain’s death set off a chain of events that reverberates nationally to this day.
Martha McSally (Official Senate portrait via Wikipedia)
In August 2018, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, appointed Martha McSally to fill McCain’s seat. This was shortly after McSally lost the regular 2018 Senate race for Jeff Flake’s former seat to then-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.
However, McSally lost a 2020 special election to officially finish the remainder of McCain’s unexpired term. She was defeated by Democratic nominee Mark Kelly, who won 51.2% of the vote.
Neither of Arizona’s two U.S. Senate seats were up for election this cycle. They are occupied by Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, both Democrats. Nevertheless, Turning Point Action’s chief operating officer blamed the McCain family’s past support for McSally for this year’s losses in other races.
“Interestingly enough, the McCains picked Martha McSally twice and she lost both our Senate Seats,” said Tyler Bowyer of Turning Point Action.
He was responding on social media to political commentator S.E. Cupp, who suggested the state’s GOP should “give McCain Republicans a try again” instead of relying on hardline conservative candidates.
Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain, weighed in: “My Dad was the last sitting senator to easily win as a Republican and is still beloved in Arizona. There are lessons from his legacy to be learned and you only further alienate the vital independents by disrespecting him.”
Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action have been pushing a hard-right agenda in the state. That agenda was repudiated by voters in the 2026 midterms.
Meghan McCain told the Merced Sun-Star she had been “inundated” with media requests to talk about Arizona and Turning Point, but she had declined out of respect for Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk and the late Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in 2025.
“I don’t know why, particularly in this moment when we should all be reflecting and working together, Turning Point wants to make an enemy of me and my family.”
“I don’t know why, particularly in this moment when we should all be reflecting and working together, Turning Point wants to make an enemy of me and my family,” she said. “But so be it.”
TPUSA’s political failures in Arizona were the subject of an article in The New York Times.
Leaders of TPUSA had called the Arizona governor’s race “the most important race in America.”
The far-right group supported Andy Biggs, a MAGA-aligned Republican, one of the last politicians Charlie Kirk personally endorsed before his assassination last year.
According to the Times, Turning Point Action spent nearly $20 million to support Biggs’ campaign.
Biggs lost to sitting Gov. Katie Hobbs by more than 10 points.
“Turning Point is driving us to extinction.”
“Turning Point is driving us to extinction,” Gina Swoboda, the former Arizona Republican Party chairwoman, told the Times. “They have become a destructive force in Republican politics.”
TPUSA has become to Phoenix what Focus on the Family has been to Colorado Springs, Colo. — an uninvited political force preaching conservative evangelical theology. Focus and a phalanx of other evangelical nonprofits have overplayed their hand and now face pushback from local voters.
In Arizona, the debate is between McCain style Republicans and Trump style Republicans. And the winner is Democrats.
TPUSA had pledged to build a “red wall” in Arizona and two other states. And despite their trouncing in the midterms, TPUSA leaders have not backed down on their hardline stance.
“I think it’s clear that we were up against a national wave that impacted every state,” said Andrew Kolvet, TPUSA spokesman. “One of the mistakes you can make after a result like we had Tuesday is to learn the wrong lessons. Any suggestion that a more moderate candidate would have fared better is plain wrong.”