By Alyssa Bowen

Turning Point Action (TPA), which campaigned for Donald Trump in Wisconsin in 2024, is deploying its get-out-the-vote machinery to back Brad Schimel in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 1, 2025. 

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is a 501(c)(3) that was launched in 2012 by college drop-out Charlie Kirk to draw young people to the Republican political agenda. It pushes its far-right messaging on social media, on high school and college campuses, and in select churches. Since 2016, Turning Point’s Kirk has built close ties to Trump and his family. According to the Guardian, “TPUSA and Kirk have capitalized on their MAGA ties to expand way beyond their campus roots,” including to political campaigning. TPUSA’s 501(c)(4) arm, TPA, helped Trump win Wisconsin in 2024 by “ballot chasing.” Now, it is producing postcards, distributing literature, and canvassing to aid Schimel in the state’s Supreme Court election. Kirk has also reportedly been screening prospective hires for the new Trump administration, including for top positions at the Pentagon, using “loyalty tests.” TPUSA is an advisory member of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s extreme policy blueprint, much of which Trump is implementing.

What You Should Know About Turning Point

How Turning Point Is Working to Get-Out-The-Vote for Schimel

• Schimel was pictured with a group of TPA doorknockers for Trump in the fall.
  
• On March 1, 2025, Schimel spoke at TPUSA’s Waukesha office where a sign on the wall read, “[t]he new campaign manager has arrived.” A TPA representative claimed on X that the Schimel meet-and-greet event drew over 60 people who canvassed for the candidate. 

• In February, Brett Galaszewski, who is both the “National Enterprise Director” for TPA and Vice Chair of the Milwaukee County GOP, announced on the Charlie Kirk show that TPA was launching a program called “Commit 100” to get state activists to chase 100 votes each, like its 2024 campaign. TPA has printed voter guides buttressing Schimel and has listed more than 30 “Super Chase” events in March, before the April 1 election. 

• He said “[t]his worked like a well oiled machine in 2024. It really put the finishing touches on our effort to get President Trump across the finish line here in Wisconsin. We had literally hundreds of people come from out of state, states like Illinois where an hour of conservative activism isn’t nearly going to have the impact that an hour of conservative activism in Wisconsin will have. We’ll train you, we’ll put you in a nice hotel, and we’ll help you chase your 100 votes.”
  
• TPA website promises: “you’ll be paid $1,250 for a full week of ballot chasing (5 days) and $250 for each additional day.” 

• TPA is also organizing an in-person get-out-the-vote event in Wisconsin featuring Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump, Jr., on March 17.

Turning Point Helped Secure Wisconsin for Trump in 2024

• In 2024, TPA launched its “Chase the Vote” initiative, which it has described as the “first and most robust conservative ballot-chasing operation,” to target Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Other national organizations listed as working with Turning Point Action are Tea Party Patriots Action, America First Works, Run Gen Z, Moms for America, Community Action Network, College Republicans of America, and the Musk-funded Early Vote Action, which is also engaged in a GOTV campaign backing Schimel. The New York Times reported that TPA set a goal of hiring more than 500 full-time “ballot chasers” in Arizona and 350 in Wisconsin in a 2023 memo to donors.
  
• The Washington Post described TPA’s strategy in Wisconsin:

“At a Turning Point Action office in Waukesha, Wis., in June, about three dozen newly hired full-time community organizers got together with poster boards and scented markers to brainstorm techniques to meet their targeted neighbors. They were each assigned a few hundred registered Republicans who didn’t vote in recent presidential elections, aiming to turn them out for Trump.

Bowyer instructed the organizers not to come on too strong by showing up with MAGA hats and fliers. Instead, they should research their marks and start reaching out through Facebook groups, community events, or neighborly gestures such as recommending plumbers or harp teachers. They could even arrange seemingly chance encounters on coffee runs or dog walks.

Some of these things sound like stalking,’ one staffer whispered.

‘Professional stalkers,’ his colleague joked back.

As one slide from the training implored: ‘BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL.’”

• TPA’s efforts in Wisconsin were eventually folded into the Elon Musk-funded America PAC, which reportedly trained Turning Point staff to use its data and follow its operations. Politico reported that “Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point, said that with America PAC taking over many of the organization’s expenses in Wisconsin, Turning Point Action will now redirect resources toward its existing field program in Arizona and a new initiative in which the organization pays for hotel rooms for volunteers to door-knock in Wisconsin and Arizona during early voting periods.”

• TPA’s tactics reportedly included targeting religious followers and gun owners and using neighborhood walk maps to reach infrequent voters.

TPUSA Has Grown Power Over Local Republican Parties 

• In addition to Milwaukee GOP leader Galaszewski’s role in TPA, many individuals tied to TPUSA or TPA are involved with Wisconsin county GOPs. Vice Chair of Ozaukee County GOP Sam Krieg and Vice Chair of LaCrosse County GOP Jordan Briskey are both TPA field representatives, and Milwaukee County GOP leaders Hilario Deleon and Darren Nelson both worked for TPA in 2024.

• In January 2025, the Wisconsin GOP proposed disallowing employees or contractors of 501(c)(4) political advocacy organizations to hold executive (state-level) committee positions. TPUSA representatives in Wisconsin were outspoken against it. TPUSA “Midwest Manager” and Dane County GOP leader Brandon Maly posted to X, “@WisGOP pull the amendment or watch it get defeated resoundingly at the State Convention. Only one of the two options will help Brad Schimel.” The amendment has been tabled for now.

• Campaign finance reports filed by Turning Point’s Wisconsin PAC show the group gave a total of $121,000 to county GOPs between April and September 2024.

• The Associated Press observed disagreement over Turning Point’s lack of sharing data from its app and operations with what is typically a clearinghouse of Republican data to be used for future GOP campaigns and groups.

• The conflict in Wisconsin rose to a point where Schimel himself, according to audio obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, denounced it at a campaign stop as a “turf war” and “battle,” telling the audience, “My message to everybody is … I need 100% of the conservative vote. We all have to grab an oar and work at this. If we don’t, we lose.” and “So can you shut it down for 49 more days, and let’s win this race,” “And then you know what? Then duke it out.”

It Is Funded by Regressive Billionaires

• TPUSA reported an annual revenue of more than $81 million in its most recent tax filings between July 2022 and June 2023, a massive jump from just $4.3 million in 2016. TPA raised an additional $10.7 million between 2022 and 2023.
  
• Since 2019, TPUSA and TPA have taken in more than $3.3 million from groups directly tied to Leonard Leo, the anti-abortion operative who engineered the far-right takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  
  • Due to the Leo network’s increased use of pass through “donor-advised funds” (DAFs) that keep the original donor secret, it is unclear how much if any additional Leo money was funneled to TPUSA or TPA  by that mechanism. In 2023, at least $4.4 million of TPUSA’s funds originated from DAFs, including$178,400 from the Servant Foundation, $1,245,370 from Donors Trust, $264,594 from Vanguard, and $2,723,040 from Fidelity.
    
• The Ed Uihlein Family Foundation gave more than $1.5 million to TPUSA  between 2014 and 2021. That foundation was launched by Dick and Liz Uihlein, billionaires, whose wealth comes in part from the Uline shipping company. Those GOP mega donors  have funneled millions in recent years to amplify their voices, including major funding of the new group calling itself “Fair Courts America,” which has targeted state supreme court races across the country, including in Wisconsin in 2023 and 2025.

It Is Part of the Far-Right Election Denialist Network

• Turning Point Action sent six buses with approximately 350 participants to the January 6 protests that preceded the insurrection. It also took in money from Publix heiress Julie Fancelli to fund the January 6 speech of Donald Trump Jr.’s then-fiance, Kimberly Guilfoyle. 
  
• Ginni Thomas, who is married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was on the advisory board of TPUSA until around 2019. She was also involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including texting with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 6 and encouraging Wisconsin and Arizona  state legislators to reverse Trump’s loss by creating slates of alternate–that is, fake–electors to ignore the popular vote for Biden and create illegitimate documents to disrupt the counting of Electoral College votes, a scheme Senator Ron Johnson aided.

• TPUSA has close ties to the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive Christian leadership group that seeks to push public policy far to the right and that helped promote Trump’s Big Lie narrative. Charlie Kirk and Ginni Thomas are members, as were five of the scheduled speakers at the January 6 rally. TP Action board member Bob McEwen is CNP’s executive director. 

• The Bradley Foundation’s affiliated DAF, the Bradley Impact Fund (BIF), gave $8.1 million to TPUSA in 2023, totaling over one-sixth of the total grants BIF reported distributing that year. The true funder of that money for TPUSA is not public. Since 2017, BIF has given a total of approximately $23.6 million to TPUSA ($8,114,600 in 2023, $7,763,487 in 2022, $7,402,353 in 2021, $251,250 in 2019, $32,500 in 2018 and $45,000 in 2017). The Bradley Foundation, which was a major underwriter of groups that were later involved in peddling the Big Lie that fueled the January 6 insurrection, also gave TPUSA $100,000 in 2019.

TLDR: A well-funded youth-focused right-wing campaign operation called Turning Point Action is working to aid Brad Schimel’s goal of winning the swing seat on the Supreme Court. TPA and its affiliated group Turning Point USA have close ties to Donald Trump’s political operations that were spearheaded by Elon Musk. The group’s founder, Charlie Kirk, is also playing a role in advising Trump on political appointments to key posts in the administration. 

For additional information about this article, please contact Evan Vorpahl at evan@truenorthresearch.org.