Usha Chilukuri Vance is stepping into the limelight. But who is she? The gorgeous woman is none other than the wife of JD Vance, the Republican Ohio senator selected as Donald Trump's running mate for the 2024 election. Usha Vance is highly accomplished in her own right: an Ivy League-educated attorney who once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
They first met as students at Yale Law School in 2013. In his book "Hillbilly Elegy," Vance refers to her as his "Yale spirit guide." They dated for a while and got married a year after graduating from law school in 2014 and had their first child, Ewan Blaine, in 2017.
Star in Her Own Right
They also have a second son, Vivek, and welcomed a daughter, Mirabel, in December 2021. The couple is raising their three children in Cincinnati. Vance was recently asked if she is ready for the spotlight if her husband is chosen as Trump's running mate.
"I don't know if anyone is ever ready for that kind of scrutiny," Vance told Fox & Friends in June. "I think we found the first campaign he embarked on to be a shock. It was so different from anything we had ever done before, but it was an adventure."
She told Fox that she's not eager to change anything in their lives at the moment, but she deeply believes in and loves her husband, so they will see what happens.
Born Usha Chilukuri, the daughter of Indian immigrants, Vance was raised in the suburbs of San Diego by a mechanical engineer and a biologist. She has said that she grew up in a devout Hindu family.
From California, she moved across the country for college and attended Yale University, where she majored in history. She then continued her education at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
At Yale Law School, she served as an editor for the Yale Law Journal and as the managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.
Happy Family
Vance is currently an attorney at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, with offices in San Francisco and Washington, DC, where she specializes in complex civil litigation and appeals.
When her husband entered the 2022 Ohio Senate race, Vance was frequently seen across the state at campaign events. She also appeared in his initial campaign ads, discussing Vance's background and highlighting his role as a husband and father to their children.
She has described him as an amazing father and her best friend.
At Munger, Tolles & Olson, Vance has worked on a variety of cases involving higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology.
Prior to joining the firm, she was a clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. She also clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Judge Amul Thapar on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
While at Yale Law School, she participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project.
When asked last month about the issues she would prioritize if she became Second Lady, Vance declined to comment.
