Vice presidential hopeful JD Vance mentions his wife a lot, particularly when he’s talking about his plan to rescue American families from “childless cat ladies.” But who is Usha Vance, actually? Is she an enthusiastic supporter of the MAGA movement, even though her parents are immigrants from India? Or is she an unwilling participant in her husband’s political ambitions, as some commenters online have suspected?
The truth is that Mrs. Vance, 38, is even harder to figure out than you might have imagined. Here’s what we know about JD Vance’s wife.
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What is her background?
You may be surprised to learn that Usha Vance’s personal background actually looks a lot more like Vice President Kamala Harris’s than either her husband’s or Donald Trump’s. Like Harris, Usha is the daughter of Indian immigrants with strong academic backgrounds. According to Reuters, Usha’s parents immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, and her parents teach engineering and molecular biology in San Diego.
Also like the current vice president, Usha became a lawyer, studying first at Cambridge and then at Yale Law School, which is where she met JD. According to a profile in the New York Times, Usha excelled at Yale, serving in a top position of the Yale Law Journal.
What are her political leanings?
The Times profile reports that as recently as 2014, Usha Vance was a registered Democrat. Her college classmates remembered her as left-leaning politically, and after college, she went on to work for the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, which had a “woke” reputation. However, before joining the firm, she also clerked for right wing Supreme Court justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and John G. Roberts Jr.
Then again, according to the Washington Post, Usha Vance expressed to friends her outrage after the January 6 riot at the capitol, and was generally distrustful of Trump. “Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing. She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election,” the anonymous friend said.
Has she responded to some of JD’s comments about childless women?
After her husband’s comments about “childless cat ladies” went viral, Usha Vance attempted to defend him. “I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and try to understand what the context was,” she said in a Fox News interview, per NPR. “Because 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.”
What is her job now?
Now that her husband is running for vice president, Usha has resigned from her position at Munger, Tolles & Olson. “In light of today’s news, I have resigned from my position at Munger, Tolles & Olson to focus on caring for our family. I am forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve had at Munger and for the excellent colleagues and friends I’ve worked with over the years,” she said in a statement, per People. The Vances share three small children under the age of eight.
