Four years ago, Sen. JD Vance shared with Megyn Kelly during an interview for her podcast, “I’m one of those guys who really benefits from having, like, a sort of powerful female voice on his left shoulder saying, ‘don’t do that, do do that.'” That powerful female voice is Usha Vance.
In that same podcast interview, the 39-year-old Ohio senator, who has been thrust into the spotlight since being named former President Donald Trump’s running mate on Monday, described his 38-year-old wife as “brilliant” and “way more accomplished than I am.”
So who is Usha Vance, the potential future second lady of the United States?
She was raised by Indian immigrant parents in Southern California and is now a mom of three
Usha Vance, formerly Usha Chilukuri, was born and raised in a suburb of San Diego by Indian immigrant parents. Her mother is a marine molecular biologist and biochemist and a provost at the University of California San Diego, and her father is an engineer.
She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s in philosophy from the University of Cambridge, where she studied the origins of copyright law.
She and JD have three young children. Their oldest was born in 2017, their second was born in 2020 and the youngest was born in 2021.
She and JD Vance met at Yale University
According to the Times, Usha volunteered to help the homeless, tutored public school students, and edited a public school advocacy magazine called Our Education while studying at Yale.
Usha and JD met at Yale Law School while part of a small group of first-year students. Both were in professor Amy Chua’s contract law course.
Judith has described Usha in his memoir as having a “great sense of humor“ and “an extraordinarily direct way of speaking.”
The pair were married in Kentucky in 2014. A separate ceremony was held with a Hindu priest, as Usha was raised Hindu and JD converted to Catholicism later in life.
She is an accomplished lawyer
Usha had held several prestigious clerkships, including in the U.S. Eastern District of Kentucky and for Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Following the announcement that JD would be a vice presidential nominee, Usha resigned from her position as a litigator for Munger, Tolles & Olson. She joined the firm in 2015 after she and JD moved to San Francisco. Her work included cases on higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology.
Usha and JD are a political paradox
Up until 2014, Usha was a registered Democrat, but recent records show her registered as a Republican. Despite her resume of clerking for conservative judges, some of her former colleagues described her as a liberal or moderate.
JD Vance, on the other hand, has had a political journey marked by shifts and contradictions in his personal beliefs and experiences.
While Usha’s personal political views have remained mostly unspoken, she has stood beside JD through his political journey, appearing in campaign ads and alongside him for televised interviews.
