Who is Usha Vance? JD Vance’s wife is a Yale-educated lawyer

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Usha Vance, 38, stepped into the national spotlight in July 2024 when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump named her husband, Sen. JD Vance, as his vice presidential running mate.

Usha has joined her husband, along with their three children, on the campaign trail. A former lawyer and avid readershe has been seen with a book under her arm at several campaign stops. She told NBC News she provides companionship on their travels, but also gives her perspective on how JD’s performances went. In addition, she helped JD prepare for the vice-presidential debate in early October.

Should the Trump-Vance ticket win the 2024 election, Usha will be the first Indian-American second lady of the United States. She would be too youngest second lady since the Harry S. Truman administration, when 38-year-old Jane Hadley Barkley married Vice President Alben Barkley in November 1949. Here’s what you need to know about Usha Vance, including her background, career, religion and how she met her husband.

A California native, Usha was born to Indian immigrants

Usha Vance was born Usha Chilukuri in San Diego in 1986 to parents who immigrated from India. Her father, Krish, worked as an engineer and became a lecturer at San Diego State University. Her mother, Lakshmi, is a microbiologist who became provost at the University of California at San Diego.

Usha and her sister grew up in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Peñasquitos. She thrived at the public Mt. Carmel High School before attending Yale University. After graduating in 2007, Usha had a teaching scholarship in China. She then earned a master’s degree from Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

Ever since she entered the public eye, Usha has been the object of attention racist attacks for her Indian-American identity. For his part, JD has defended his wife on several occasions. “What kind of man marries Usha? A very smart man and a very lucky man, most importantly,” he said.

Usha and JD Vance met in law school and have three children

usha vance and jd vance smile as two of their young children join them in a crowded dining room

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Usha and JD Vance have two sons, Ewan and Vivek, and a daughter, Mirabel.

In 2010, Usha started at Yale Law School. In her freshman year, she took classes with JD Vance (then going by the name JD Hamel). Usha and JD soon became a couple; their closeness led the classmates to merge their names and christen the couple “Judas.” In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, JD credited her as being his “spirit guide” at Yale as he struggled to fit in.

In 2014, Usha and JD were married in Kentucky, and she became Usha Vance (JD changed his last name the year before). After living in California and Washington DC, the Vances moved to Cincinnati in 2018. They have three children, including two sons and a daughter. Ewan was born in June 2017, followed by Vivek in February 2020 and Mirabel in December 2021.

She worked at the US Supreme Court and a private law firm

Usha held prestigious clerkships after law school, including for Brett Kavanaugh when he was a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. In 2017-18, she clerked for the Supreme Court with Chief Justice John Roberts.

In addition to legal positions, Usha was a paralegal at Munger Tolles & Olsen, a law firm with a self-described “radically progressive” cultureuntil her resignation in July 2024, when JD became the Republican vice presidential pick.

Usha was raised as a Hindu, but attends the Catholic Church with her family

Her family’s Hindu faith was an important part of Usha’s childhood. In an interview in June 2024 with Fox Newsshe said: “I grew up in a religious household. My parents are Hindu, and that was one of the things that made them such good parents, which makes them really, really good people.”

When the Vances got married in 2014, their wedding festivities included a Hindu blessing ceremony. JD converted to Catholicism in 2019 but Usha did not. But she is supported his decision and accompanies him to church with their children.

The former Democrat fully supports her husband and Trump

Usha was registered as a Democrat until 2014. After her husband became the Republican vice presidential nominee, an anonymous friend said Washington Post Usha had been “scared by Trump” and disturbed by the January 6, 2021 attack on the US capitol. But like JD, who also had a mention of Trump, The mailreported comments from a Republican strategist and family friend who said Usha’s views had changed and that she now supported both her husband and Trump.

When JD faced criticism this year over a 2021 remark that the US was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives”, Usha defended her husband. In an interview with Fox News in August she described JD’s statement as a “quip”. “What he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country, and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that makes it even harder,” Usha said.

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Sara Kettler is a Connecticut-based freelance writer who has written for Biography.com, History and the A&E True Crime blog. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America and also writes mystery novels. In addition to writing, she likes dogs, Broadway shows, and studying foreign languages.