These women don’t trust politicians. They do trust Candace Owens.

In 2016, Candace Owens emerged as a leading conservative voice, the rare Black woman backing then-candidate Donald Trump. 

In 2017, she was hired by Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit co-founded by Charlie Kirk.

In 2020, she announced that she’d be joining The Daily Wire, a right-wing media network. Her talk show, “Candace” launched in 2021 as her influence continued to grow as an author, political and cultural commentator, leading conservative personality and the co-founder of the Blexit Foundation, a conservative nonprofit that encouraged Black Americans to leave the Democratic Party. She criticized feminism, COVID vaccines and the concept of structural racism.

But then in 2024, The Daily Wire announced it had severed ties with Owens. She had been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the United State’s financial and military support, a point of tension with Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, and had faced backlash for interacting with and promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media. She went solo, posting content on YouTube and social media platforms. 

Then her friend Charlie Kirk was killed on September 10, 2025. Since then, Owens has focused most of her content on questioning official accounts of Kirk’s assassination, often vilifying Charlie’s widow, Erika Kirk, and placing blame on Israel — infuriating some conservatives while also attracting a new following online. Between January 2025 and March 2026, Owens grew her platforms by 80 percent, according to a Media Matters report, gaining about 10.9 million followers across YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Facebook and TikTok and generating roughly 805 million YouTube views. 

Now, Owens has more than 35 million subscribers and followers across platforms and a podcast that is frequently ranked in the country’s top 20.

The 19th spoke to half a dozen fans or avid listeners of Owens — though most were unwilling to speak publicly about their opinions for fear of criticism, condemnation or even violence. In general, her listeners insisted that they’re just asking questions. Their Christianity is core to how they see themselves — and they see that reflected in Owens, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 2024. To them, Owens is tenacious, entertaining, earnest and sincere — a voice they trust in a dishonest and chaotic media landscape. 

Experts say that her popularity in this moment highlights the changing nature of the Republican Party and exposes what Americans are craving in their leadership. The 19th spoke to women who seemed to be in a transitory political identity: Some said they were liberal-turned-conservative, some said they used to be but are no longer MAGA Republicans, and a few said they did not identify with a political party at all and were generally distrustful of politicians.    

‘Quest for the truth’ 

One 38-year-old influencer and stay-at-home mother of two started listening to Owens after Kirk died. She spoke on condition that she be identified by her Instagram handle, That Girl Mom, due to death threats she’s received. She now watches Owens’s show, on every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and creates recap videos on her Instagram page, which has amassed nearly 100,000 followers and is regularly reposted by Owens herself. 

“After he died, it became very clear that the story they were giving us was just completely ridiculous,” said That Girl Mom, a former paralegal based in Alabama with around 160,000 followers. “And then when Candace started asking questions, everyone started attacking her, making it even more obvious that something was wrong. Because why are you attacking her when she’s just trying to find the truth?”

Kirk was shot at an event at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025. One man, Tyler Robinson, has been charged in his death; he has not yet entered a plea but turned himself in to police the day after Kirk’s death. Owens has suggested that Robinson was framed and put forward theories involving a trap door, time travel, the CIA and Israeli involvement. The theories have not been supported by evidence. 

That Girl Mom said she would have been drawn to anyone in that moment who was searching for the truth. It just happened to be Owens. 

“A lot of people I talk to have said that they started really watching her because of the Charlie Kirk stuff,” she said. “I think people don’t understand that the more they attack her, the more credible she seems.” 

The influencer said Owens is particularly believable because she doesn’t claim to have all the facts or all the answers. That Girl Mom currently spends about 20 hours a week watching Owens’ episodes, doing her own research and then filming the recap videos. 

“The majority of people who follow me and watch the recaps also watch Candace’s videos — I don’t really know why,” she said. “And then I’ve had a lot of people tell me that their parents like my recaps because they’re less than 10 minutes. So they can get all the information in less than 10 minutes instead of having to sit there for an hour.” 

The influencer said when people find out that she listens to Owens, they often mock her and call her a conspiracy theorist. But That Girl Mom said she has grown to embrace the title. Her dad was a conspiracy theorist who raised her to be one, someone who can think for herself and question whether the government has her best interests at heart. 

“Candace Owens just has the biggest platform, and she’s the loudest one out there looking for the truth,” That Girl Mom said. “And she has invited us all to come along and help her in her search.” 

The influencer said she considered herself very conservative and voted for Trump, but in recent months she has started to criticize some of the administration’s decisions. When she did that, she said, she was instantly attacked online by the MAGA community. 

“They have literally pushed me out,” the influencer said. “And that’s fine. I don’t want to be affiliated with people who are so hateful. I don’t understand how we got duped so bad, but I did. But with Candace Owens fans, there are people from everywhere who support her and are welcoming because it’s a quest for the truth. It has nothing to do with political affiliation.” 

‘A very dangerous woman’ 

Kyle Spencer, an author and journalist who for years has written about the rise of a conservative youth movement, first met Owens on a college campus in Colorado in 2018. Spencer was writing a book called “Raising Them Right,” which followed three different members of the far-right community, including both Owens and Kirk, and chronicled how they were able to harness social media, capitalize on celebrity culture and build a powerful conservative presence on college campuses. 

“My impression of her was that she was incredibly driven,” Spencer said of Owens. “She had a very, very close relationship with Charlie — they got each other on a certain level. She was incredibly charismatic. She was really attractive. She was dynamic, no-nonsense and very comfortable in a crowd. You had the vibe that she was kind of finding her footing and looking ahead at a future that she was building in her mind. She had envisioned this future where she would have a lot of fame.” 

Owens saw clearly, Spencer said, how culture and politics were intertwined. If she engaged with culture first, then she could ultimately impact her listeners’ political leanings. It’s unclear now what Owens wants her impact on politics to be, as she criticizes Trump and Israel. Owens isn’t just talking about short-term elections, but shaping her listeners’ world views, Spencer said.

“There’s a fracture inside the conservative movement with issues of foreign policy, and mostly Israel,” Spencer said. “Candace used to be so tight with Trump, and now she’s separated from him. Now the question is can she bring voters away? Will she lure voters away from Republicans who support Israel? How much does she actually care about swaying the current political system?”

Owens has successfully positioned herself as a journalist, an investigator, someone who digs deep and asks the hard questions, Spencer said. She mixes fact and fiction into these mirages of reality where it doesn’t matter whether things are true or false. And she weaves great narratives, Spencer added.

“This is a very dangerous woman,” Spencer said.

‘Not what we thought she was at all’ 

Tennille Amor, a singer-songwriter based in California, said she doesn’t consider herself a “Candace fan” — meaning she “wouldn’t follow her off a cliff or anything” — but she does respect Owens. Amor also started following Owens after Kirk’s death. Before then, she had never heard of Kirk or Turning Point USA. 

Amor said she’s a former liberal but not political anymore. 

“I recognize both sides of the political spectrum and very much just consider myself to be a free thinker, someone who is continuously seeking the truth wherever that truth may come from,” Amor said. 

After Kirk died, Amor said, she had questions as conspiracy theories abounded online. Owens offered answers. 

Amor had encountered Owens before, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Owens was criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement and highlighting the efforts of her organization, the Blexit Foundation.

Amor, who was born in Trinidad, disagreed with what Owens was saying then. And sometimes she still takes issue with how Owens speaks, saying her criticisms can be malicious and not Christian. 

But, Amor said, Owens’ friend was killed, so she gives her grace. And Owens’ independence from a bigger organization is appealing to her.

As a singer-songwriter with nearly 40,000 Instagram followers of her own, Amor said she’s felt the weight of having opinions — losing friends and followers and receiving critical direct messages. 

“She’s been the most hated figure in a lot of ways at different times in her life and career,” Amor said. “And I actually admire those types of people who can just keep pushing forward and shut the noise out and just keep going and striving towards a purpose while operating from a place of purpose.”

Amor said a “shocking” number of her friends and creative colleagues have come around to Owens, especially Black listeners who used to have a problem with her. 

“They’ve been watching her long-form content, as opposed to clips,” Amor said. “I think that clips sometimes don’t do justice to what someone is really saying. We all had a preconceived idea of who she was until we actually listened in long form, and it’s not what we thought she was at all.” 

‘On-ramps for apolitical people’ 

A.J. Bauer, an assistant journalism and creative media professor at the University of Alabama, said it’s not surprising to him that many of Owens’s current listeners identify as apolitical. So much of people’s political identities are now shaped by media consumption habits — aesthetics and online communities often matter more than any given political issue.

“Trump’s inconsistencies with traditional conservative ideology has created a more convoluted conservatism with more entry points or on-ramps for apolitical people who might see someone like Candace Owens, agree with her on something and then become onboarded into a broader array of conservative thinkers and ideas,” Bauer said. “Our political identities are almost kind of like fandom identities now.”

Bauer researches historical and contemporary right-wing movements in the United States and recently wrote a book called “Making the Liberal Media.” Dating as far back as the 1950s, he found that in general the liberal media tries to understand the world, make sense of an empirical reality and then interpret it so as to change it. Conservative media, on the other hand, tends to imagine what the world should be like and then arrange its stories to conform, he writes.

“Conspiratorial thinking is a way of explaining uncertainty in the world and claiming that there’s a cause or agent behind whatever is taking place,” Bauer said. “And I think that gives a lot of conservatives comfort.” 

There’s a long history of right-wing media appealing to conspiratorial mindsets. Bauer pointed to the John Birch Society, an organization that engaged in paranoia reporting in the 1960s. Members accused the president, the CIA director and the Supreme Court chief justice of being agents of a communist plot. Bauer also compared Owens’ platform to Facts Forum — an anti-communist organization that engaged in conspiratorial content during the McCarthy era, sowing fear, suspicion and division under the guise of educational programming — and the QAnon phenomenon, a far-right conspiracy theory that gained traction in 2020. 

“Owens fits within a kind of broader genre expectation among right-wing audiences where they want to feel as though they’re critically engaged media consumers,” Bauer said. “Owens respects her audiences enough to lead them — with perhaps dubious facts — through complex narratives that assure them they are smart and have the tools to see the world differently.”

Her goal isn’t just to shape views, though — it’s to bring in viewers, Bauer said. 

“Owens is not merely thinking about what is best for modern conservatism as a political movement,” Bauer said. “She’s also thinking: ‘How do I grow my brand? How do I increase my revenue? How do I make sure that I’m making as much money as I want to be making?’”

‘A long-running thread in conservative culture’ 

Seth Cotlar, a professor of history at Willamette University, said he’s studied politics, media and conservatism dating back to the 1790s. Owens’ approach is familiar to him. 

Cotlar compared her rhetoric to a conservative anti-communist newspaper publisher he’s been researching: Walter Huss. In the 1960s, Huss was convinced that then-Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon was a communist based on scant evidence.

“Huss was running about like he knew what the answer was already, just looking for clues and stories that he could use,” Cotlar said. “And whenever reality didn’t conform to what he wanted it to be, he would just ignore it. He was also obsessed with the idea that the media was lying to you — which is a long-running thread in conservative culture.” 

One misconception that people often have about conspiracy theories is that there’s a lack of information, Cotlar said, when actually there’s usually a huge abundance of information.

“Candace Owens will pump out all this information and encourage people to read it all and come to their own conclusions,” Cotlar said. “It creates a magnetic pull of people who are genuinely curious about the world but who have basically entered into this curated world, where they are insulated from alternative voices because they were told not to trust those alternative voices.” 

In many ways, That Girl Mom said that creating an online space for Owens’ listeners has led to a new community of likeminded individuals — people tired of divisive politics and an unforgiving cancel culture that deems opposing views as evil. That Girl Mom said she’s been called “crazy,” “loony” and “evil” and told she should die. She’s been told that her kids should be taken away from her, had people threaten her at her home and even had people call her former employer in an attempt to get her fired. But the community she’s created around listening to Owens is more welcoming and open-minded, she said.

“For the most part, everyone kind of has the same feeling of wanting to understand the person beneath the idea and understand where they’re coming from and what motivates them to think the way that they think,” the influencer said. “You see each other as human and not just as red or blue or Black or White, male or female.” 

And most importantly, she said, it’s a community of people who are “tired of being lied to.”