Usha Vance has played a quietly supportive role in her husband’s political career

On the campaign trail, Usha Vance, the spouse of Republican JD Vance, the nominee for vice president, has been a supporting spouse. However, the attorney has been under close examination: her career has been examined in detail, her appearance has been compared to other women in Donald Trump’s inner circle, and most importantly, speculation about her politics has been rampant.

Despite coming from an intellectual household, Usha Vance has achieved incredible success in her legal profession. After completing her studies at Yale Law School, she worked as a clerk for Justice Brett Kavanaugh while he was an appeals court judge and later as Chief Justice John Roberts’ deputy. She afterwards became a trial attorney with Munger, Tolles & Olson, a position she left when her husband became Trump’s running mate.

JD Vance has given his wife a lot of praise. “I’m one of those guys who really benefits from having sort of a powerful female voice over his left shoulder saying, ‘Don’t do that; do that,'” he said in a 2020 interview on Megyn Kelly’s podcast. She is that guiding figure for him now, he continued. While her husband’s extremist opinions are well known, Usha Vance’s political beliefs are still mostly unknown. She has reportedly historically leaned left or centrist, according to reports. As late as 2014, she was registered as a Democrat, according to The New York Times. Some of her colleagues and allies reportedly saw her speech at the Republican National Convention in July in “disbelief,” according to an article published in The Washington Post.

Usha Vance has followed her husband on the campaign road, but she hasn’t really made a name for herself in the public eye. She has only agreed to a single media interview—with Fox News—since her husband’s nomination, and in that one, she had to defend her husband’s derogatory remarks about “childless cat ladies” as merely a “quip.” Usha Vance’s politics have mostly stayed unclear, despite her husband’s extremist viewpoints becoming widely known.

Right-wing racists like Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who has hung out with Trump, have been attacking her. Nevertheless, she hasn’t publicly stated that she disagrees with her husband’s political transformation from a conservative Never Trump supporter to a leader of the next wave of the MAGA movement. Usha Vance stated in an August interview with Fox News that although she and her husband don’t always agree on politics, she still has faith in his “intention.”

“We’re two different people,” she remarked, citing our disparate origins, passions, and other characteristics. As a result, we consistently reach different findings. However, that is a fun aspect of marriage. And even when I disagree with JD on anything, I never question his intentions or what it is that he truly wants to accomplish.