Ohio Republican Senator JD Vance, who is the son-in-law of immigrants from Andhra Pradesh, was named the Republican vice presidential nominee by former President Donald Trump at the party’s convention in Milwaukee on Monday.
With his nomination, now focus is going on his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance, a popular lawyer. With her impressive credentials and deep connection to Indian values and culture, is expected to play a significant role in her husband’s political journey and in strengthening ties between the US and India.
Usha, of Indian American descent with roots in Andhra Pradesh, has been a steadfast supporter of JD in his political and community endeavors. Usha’s involvement in JD’s political career and her own distinguished legal career position her to potentially make history if her husband is elected and assumes the vice presidency.
She brings legal expertise as a trial lawyer and has experience as a judicial clerk. Once a critic of Trump, Vance expressed gratitude for the support of his Indian-origin wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, who attended the convention.
Usha and JD Vance married in Kentucky in 2014, with a Hindu priest presiding over a separate ceremony. Usha has played a subtle yet significant role in JD’s success, assisting him in organising his thoughts on social decline in rural white America, which inspired his best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” later adapted into a film directed by Ron Howard in 2020.
Usha Chilukuri was born in California to Indian immigrant parents and grew up in the suburbs of San Diego. She attended Mt. Carmel High School in Rancho Peñasquitos and later Yale Law School, where she met JD Vance in 2013.
Together, they organised a discussion group on “social decline in white America” and quickly bonded, with JD referring to Usha as his “Yale spirit guide.” The couple married in 2014 after graduating from Yale Law School.
Usha has been instrumental in JD’s political journey and has been actively involved in his campaigns, including his successful Senate campaigns in 2016 and 2022, and has been registered to vote as a Republican in Ohio since 2018.
Professionally, Usha is a skilled litigator who has worked at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Usha has also clerked for Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh before his nomination to the Court.
Raised in a suburb of San Diego, Usha’s academic achievements include serving as managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology and executive development editor of the Yale Law Journal.
