Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk (née Frantzve), is sharing her thoughts on women and marriage amid Zohran Mamdani’s recent election as mayor of New York City.
Erika, 37, was asked her opinion on Mamdani, 34, during an onstage interview at The New York Times’ 2025 DealBook Summit on Wednesday, December 3.
Interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin noted that the NYC mayor-elect “actually was able to persuade the younger voter,” like her late husband did with his conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, however, “on the complete opposite end, if you will, of where someone like Charlie would have been.”
“You know it’s so interesting because I lived in Manhattan for a while and I loved this city,” Erika began her answer.
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She continued, “I’m going to come at this from a female voter because a high percentage of his voters were female. I think there’s a tendency, especially when you live in a city like Manhattan, where, again, you are so career driven, and you almost looked to the government as a form of replacement for certain things relationship-wise even, so you see things a little bit differently.”
Erika went on to urge women not to put the government before having a family.
“What I don’t want to happen is women young women in the city look to the government as a solution to put off having a family or a marriage because you’re relying on the government to support you instead of being united with the husband, where you can support yourself and your husband can support and you can guys all combine together,” she said.
“I just find it so ironic and so interesting that a heavy percentage of the individuals that voted for him are female,” Erika added of Mamdani, who defeated former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in the November 4 mayoral election.
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Erika has continued her late husband’s work with Turning Point USA, which advocates for young people becoming politically active, taking over as the organization’s CEO following Charlie’s death in September.
Erika, who shared two children with Charlie, recently opened up about the right-wing political pundit’s death in an interview with Megyn Kelly.
“We wanted to have four [children],” Erika told Kelly in November. “And I was praying to God that I was pregnant when he got murdered. … Both of us were, we were really excited to just expand our family.”
Erika said that having another child “would be the ultimate blessing out of this catastrophe,” referring to Charlie’s fatal shooting at a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
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“Now when I see young couples, I tell them, ‘Please, don’t put it off.’ Especially if you’re a young woman, don’t put it off. You can always have a career, you can always go back to work. You can never just go back to having children,” Erika added.
Erika and her children marked their first Thanksgiving without Charlie on November 27. In an Instagram tribute, she wrote, “We’ll save a plate for you babe. I love you, @charliekirk1776 Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Charlie and I always loved Thanksgiving because it drew us back to the simple, but holy practice of gratitude,” Erika captioned a video of herself walking through a room filled with boxes of gifts and condolence letters.
