Who Is US Second Lady Usha Vance? Know Her India Connection

Usha Vance, wife of US VP JD Vance, is a Yale, Cambridge grad and ex-lawyer of Indian origin. She keeps a low profile but is a strong, quiet presence in his political life.

Second Lady Usha Vance

Source : PTI

US Vice President JD Vance is visiting India with his wife, Usha Vance and their children — Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel. Indian origin Usha Vance has been with next to her husband throughout his political career.

While a lot is known about JD Vance, as the second lady of the United States, Usha Vance occupies a role that has traditionally remained in the background of White House affairs, which aligns with her low profile.

Family & Education

According to BBC, Usha Vance was born and brought up in the working-class suburbs of San Diego, California. Her father worked as a mechanical engineer, while her mother, a molecular biologist, had immigrated to the United States from Andhra Pradesh, India. Meanwhile, her younger sister is a mechanical engineer with a semiconductor company in San Diego, and one of her aunts is a medical professional in Chennai.

She earned a BA in history from Yale University and later became a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where she completed an MPhil in early modern history.

According to New18, Usha Vance, in an interview, mentioned that she grew up in a religious household. “My parents are Hindu, and that is one of the things that made them such good parents, that made them really good people. And so I have seen the power of that."

How JD Vance met Usha

Usha met JD Vance in 2010 while studying at Yale Law School, the two connected through a student discussion group focused on "social decline in white America."

US VP Vance in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about his childhood in the white working-class US Rust Belt, wrote how he "fell hard" for Usha at Yale, describing her as a "genetic anomaly" because she possessed so many ideal qualities.

Classmates recall Usha Vance as someone who stood out in the intense, competitive environment of Ivy League law school—not just for her intellect, but for her kindness and readiness to help others.

Political Leanings

However, Usha Vance’s political leanings had sparked considerable speculation.

While her husband has vocally opposed what he calls “woke” ideologies promoted by Democrats, as per BBC she was a registered Democrat as recently as ten years ago. Up until the summer of 2023, she worked as a trial lawyer at the San Francisco-based firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, a firm known for its self-described “radically progressive” stance.

She continued her work at the firm between clerkships, where, according to an archived version of her employee biography, she handled “complex civil litigation and appeals” in fields such as “higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology, including semiconductors”, according to BBC.

Usha Vance resigned from her position after her husband, JD Vance, was named the Republican vice-presidential candidate.