Who Is Usha Vance? JD Vance’s Wife Is a Yale-Educated Lawyer

Usha Vance, 38, entered the national spotlight in July 2024 when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump named her husband, Senator 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 reader, she’s been seen with a book under her arm at multiple campaign stops. She told NBC News she provides companionship on their travels but also offers her perspective on how JD’s appearances went. In addition, she helped JD prepare for the vice presidential debate at the beginning of 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 also be the 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 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 had 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 a provost at the University of California at San Diego.

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

Since entering the public eye, Usha has been the subject of racist attacks for her Indian American identity. For his part, JD has defended his wife on multiple occasions. “What kind of man marries Usha? A very smart man and a very lucky man, importantly,” he said.

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

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

In 2010, Usha started at Yale Law School. In her first year, she took classes with JD Vance (who then went by the name J.D. Hamel). Usha and JD soon became a couple; their closeness led classmates to merge their names and dub the pair “Judusha.” In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, JD credited her as being his “spirit guide” at Yale when 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 previous year). After living in California and Washington D.C., the Vances relocated 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 U.S. Supreme Court and a private law firm

Usha held prestigious clerkships after law school including for Brett Kavanaugh when he was a judge of U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In 2017-18, she had a Supreme Court clerkship with Chief Justice John Roberts.

Beyond court positions, Usha was an associate at Munger Tolles & Olsen, a law firm with a self-described “radically progressive” culture, until her July 2024 resignation when JD became the Republican vice presidential pick.

Usha was raised Hindu but attends Catholic Church with her family

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

When the Vances got married in 2014, their wedding events included a Hindu blessing ceremony. JD converted to Catholicism in 2019, but Usha didn’t. However, she supported his decision and accompanies him to church with their children.

The former Democrat fully backs her husband and Trump

Usha was registered as a Democrat until 2014. After her husband became the Republican vice presidential nominee, an anonymous friend told The Washington Post Usha had been “appalled by Trump” and disturbed by the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. However, like JD who also had an about-face on Trump, The Postreported 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 about the United States being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives,” Usha defended her husband. In an interview with Fox News this 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 make it even harder,” Usha said.