Turning Point USA's founder Charlie Kirk has been accused of orchestrating a "hostile takeover" of the national GOP — and an Arizona columnist pointed out the disaster for his home state's Republican Party when he did the same thing there.
Reports put Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth group, at the center of the ousting of Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, and that it's a move aimed at putting Kirk and his followers in control — a claim that Kirk denies.
"All of this will interest Arizona conservatives, as Turning Point is the organization that took over the Arizona Republican Party and helped move the needle on Arizona politics in the wrong direction," writes the Arizona Republic's Phil Boas.
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Boas said Kirk's organization, which is based in Arizona, virtually took over the state's party, fielding right-wing candidates loyal to the MAGA cause.
"In the 2022 election, Arizona voters would have none of it," Boas said.
"They rejected the major GOP candidates who ran MAGA campaigns. Two years earlier, they voted for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump, handing Arizona's 11 electoral votes to Biden."
Despite the fact that Arizona's population is majority Republican, the party has lost nearly all positions of power since Kirk's move, he wrote. Democrats control the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general and Arizona’s two U.S. Senate seats — though one of those representatives later became an independent.
NBC reported that McDaniel was ousted because Kirk wanted control of the RNC’s dollars and donor lists.
“This is why he was trying to get rid of Ronna,” a Trump ally told NBC News. “He shouldn’t make it sound like, ‘Oh, we’re tired of losing. We don’t have an early vote program.’ He should have just said, ‘Listen, he who controls the RNC controls millions of dollars and I want to get my hands on them.’ I mean, that would have been a more honest grift.”
Turning Point denies the accusations and say they are simply just trying to help Republicans win in 2024.
"Don’t be surprised if Donald Trump is playing a double game, embracing Kirk through some channels while warning through others he needs to watch his mouth," Boas writes. "What could be more Trump-like than that?"
