After Charlie Kirk’s Death, a Record-Breaking AmericaFest

PHOENIX—At 6 a.m. on Dec. 21, the crowd outside the Phoenix Convention Center was already enormous. Thousands of Americans chatted, sang, and chanted on the predawn sidewalks. They were waiting to hear Vice President JD Vance and other speakers on the final day of Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2025. Many were youthful—the conservative high schoolers, college students, and young adults whom TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk sought to motivate before his assassination on a college campus in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 10, just three months ago. The shock and sadness of that moment were soon tempered by faith and purpose. The 31-year-old’s followers and allies said that Kirk, the man who built a Republican juggernaut for President Donald Trump and America First, would have wanted them to keep fighting....