Who is JD Vance's wife, Usha Chilukuri?
Republican US Senate candidate JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance
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Usha Chilukuri, the wife of JD Vance said she was attracted to him because he was "very different."
Vance was today confirmed as Donald Trump's running mate for the 2024 presidential election.
Chilukuri is a litigator for the San Francisco and Washington DC-based law firm, Munger, Tolles, & Olson, and is an Ivy League-educated litigator who once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
The pair first met while they were both students at Yale Law School in 2013. In his book Hillbilly Elegy, Vance describes her as his "Yale spirit guide."
Republican US Senate candidate JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance
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Chilukuri is licensed to practice law in California, Ohio, and the District of Columbia. She told Megyn Kelly in a 2017 interview that she had been attracted to JD because of his positive attitude, adding: "He felt very different."
She was the managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology and the Executive Development Editor of the Yale Law Journal during her time in school.
The pair have three children named Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel. Chilukuri was recently asked if she is prepared for media scrutiny if her husband was chosen as Trump's running mate.
She said: "I don't know if anyone is ever ready for that kind of scrutiny...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."
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Republican U.S. Senate candidate JD Vance speaks to supporters with wife Usha Vance
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The daughter of Indian immigrants, she was raised in the suburbs of San Diego by a mechanical engineer and biologist. She has said she was raised in a religious Hindu family.
At Munger, Tolles & Olson, Vance's cases have focused on a wide range of topics including higher education, local government, entertainment and technology.
At Yale Law School, she also participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project.
When asked last month what issue she would focus on if she were to become Second Lady, Vance declined to answer.
Republican VP candidate JD Vance
Reuters
JD Vance's scepticism of corporate America, support for tariffs, weariness of foreign entanglements and his youth make him a leading voice of a new Republican Party that is more focused on the working class than big business in the eyes of supporters.
Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, whom Vance has described as a mentor, said: "I think that in terms of bringing to the ticket, he can articulate the pain that American families are feeling better than almost anybody else."
Vance has also been criticized for just copying Trump.
Associate professor of politics at the University of Cincinnati David Niven said: "Vance is an echo to Trump...not a new voice."
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