After major Republican defeats on Election Day, some top GOP leaders are pointing the finger at one of the biggest conservative groups in Arizona: Turning Point USA.
On Nov. 6, Gina Swoboda, who served as chair of the Arizona Republican Party from 2024 to 2026, told Arizona’s Family that Republicans should stop sending far-right extremists and election deniers to top offices if they want to win.
She added that Turning Point Action, the political arm of Turning Point USA, should stay out of elections.
“I think Turning Point Action killed the party. Turning Point Action is the reason we are where we are as a state party,” Swoboda said.
Turning Point, the conservative advocacy group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, put its support behind Arizona’s most extreme candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general—all 2020 election deniers running on far-right platforms and loyalty to President Donald Trump.
The group, now run by Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, spent $18 million to boost US Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Gilbert) in his campaign against Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, but Decision Desk HQ called the race for Hobbs shortly after polls closed on Election Day. The loss was a massive setback for the Phoenix-based organization, as Biggs was one of Kirk’s last endorsements before his September 2025 death.
“Turning Point Action is a political organization that has made its stated mission to primary incumbent Republicans that they don’t like, that don’t meet their definition of what a Republican should be. You know who gets to define what a Republican should be? The voters,” Swoboda said.
Swoboda originally ran for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District before switching to the secretary of state’s office, which she lost in the July primary to state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, an election denier and Trump loyalist, whom Turning Point supported.
It’s not just Swoboda taking aim at Turning Point.
After political commentator S.E. Cupp said the GOP should return to the kind of politics practiced by former US Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, replied calling Cupp “brain dead.”
Bowyer, in turn earned the gripe of Meghan McCain, the late senator’s daughter, who replied that Turning Point is using what should be a moment of reflection and clarity to “make an enemy of me and my family,” adding that some GOP candidates, like ex-NFL kicker Jay Feely, who ran in Arizona’s 1st District, did reach out to her family for support.
“My dad was the last sitting Senator to easily win as a Republican and is still beloved in Arizona,” McCain wrote in a Nov. 8 post on X. “There are lessons from his legacy to be learned and you only further alienate the vital independents by disrespecting him.”
Bowyer promptly replied that same day, “And you both did zero to help a single Republican in Arizona. Your family has helped a lot of Democrats out of Trump spite. The polling was the polling, in CD-1 even, the name wasn’t helpful. A name is a name, what you do is what you do.”
Before his death, John McCain and Trump frequently sparred and represented opposing sides of the GOP. In 2015, Trump mocked McCain’s military service. McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said in 2015. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Despite the remarks, McCain backed Trump in 2016, but revoked his endorsement after an “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. There was no love lost between the two, and candidates loyal to Trump and Turning Point, like Kari Lake, who ran for governor in 2022 and Senate in 2024, criticized McCain-style Republicans on the campaign trail.
“We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we? Get the hell out!” Lake said at a 2022 campaign event.
The McCain family has since distanced itself from Trump-like politics and made headlines in July for helping fundraise for Hobbs’ reelection campaign. Cindy McCain, the former head of the United Nations World Food Programme and McCain’s widow, endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. Jimmy McCain, her son and a Marine Corps veteran, registered as a Democrat in 2024 and backed Kamala Harris for president that same year.
Meghan McCain replied that Turning Point’s strategies led to the blue wave that swept Arizona, where Democrats will now hold a trifecta—the governor’s office and both chambers of the state Legislature—for the first time since 1966.
“I’m also not the one who picked a slate filled with grifters and losers like Kari Lake, Blake Masters, and Paul Gosar as candidates for the Arizona electorate,” McCain wrote on X Nov. 8. “Your loss is so bad that Republicans are openly talking about what a failure your strategy has been.”
Since John McCain’s death in 2018, the Arizona Republican Party has slowly lost its grip on the state. Once a strong Republican state, Arizona’s last wins in top-of-the-ticket races were then-Gov. Doug Ducey’s reelection in 2018 and Trump’s 2024 win. Republicans have lost both of Arizona’s US Senate seats and the governorship, and just lost two more House seats in Arizona’s 1st and 6th Congressional Districts.
Winning primaries but losing generals
While Turning Point has the financial resources, its ability to win general elections in Arizona is in question. The group backed candidates for Senate and governor in 2022, Blake Masters and Kari Lake, and both lost to Democrats. Lake lost again in her 2024 Senate bid against US Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)
The group is successful in getting Republicans across the finish line in primary races. When it comes to general elections, though, its candidates have been outperformed by Democrats. This cycle, too, all of its top candidates for statewide offices lost.
While top Republicans are calling out the group, Turning Point is pointing the finger elsewhere: the political climate along with the war in Iran for the party’s hefty losses.
“I think it’s clear that we were up against a national wave that impacted every state,” Andrew Kolvet, Turning Point’s spokesman, said in a statement to the New York Times. “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.”
Former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, mocked Turning Point in a Nov. 3 post.
“Here in Arizona, your donations to Turning Point…Might not have delivered any wins, Might have completed turning the state blue,But at least you bought some mediocre guys, with no work history, who were in default on loans… Some million dollar houses.”
