Washington: Usha Chilukuri Vance, the Indian-American wife of JD Vance whom Republican nominee Donald Trump picked as his running mate, has perked up India's interest in the upcoming US presidential race. Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants hailing from Andhra Pradesh, was raised in a suburb of San Diego, California. She is employed as a litigator at a national law firm.
Usha got married to Vance, her law schoolmate, in 2014. According to the New York Times, the couple had a Hindu wedding ceremony presided over by a priest as her family upholds Indian culture and values. They have three children: Ewan Blaine, Vivek and Mirabel.
Usha has an impressive academic background. She holds a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge.
Usha established herself as a successful lawyer after clerking for Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh before Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. Usha had served as the managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology and executive development editor of The Yale Law Journal, according to a biography from Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm.
Though her husband joined the Republican party, Usha was a registered Democrat during her college days at Cambridge University in 2014.
Usha played a major role in building her husband's political career. Vance called Usha his 'Yale Spirit Guide' in his book 'Hillbilly Elegy', a memoir published in 2016. This book was adapted into a film directed by Ron Howard in 2020.
Senator Vance spent his childhood in Ohio's Middletown. He served in the Marines and was deployed in Iraq. Later, he graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He has close ties with Trump's elder son Donald Trump Jr who was impressed by his book.
Combative and ultra-loyal, Vance's rise to Donald Trump's running mate this November completes a remarkable transformation for a 39-year-old senator now seen as the future face of the Republican party.
Vance has been one of Trump's most effective attack dogs in Congress, promoting the dominant populist ideology -- opposing immigration, insistent on Christianity as a touchstone of public and private morality, and opposing support for Ukraine's fight against Russian invasion.
Once self-described as "a Never Trump guy," Vance previously called the billionaire an "idiot," "noxious" and "reprehensible," according to extensive reporting, while expressing worry that he might be "America's Hitler." Vance later reinvented himself as a Trump supporter and ultimately won the ex-president's key endorsement in the 2022 Senate race.
