Usha Chilukuri Vance, the Indian American Attorney and Wife of Ohio GOP Senate Primary Winner J.D. Vance

J.D. Vance, endorsed by Trump, won Ohio's GOP Senate primary. He is supported by his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, a lawyer from Yale.

Usha Chilukuri Vance, an accomplished Indian American attorney, stands alongside her husband, J.D. Vance, who recently won the Ohio GOP Senate primary. Known for her legal expertise and professional achievements, Usha has supported Vance's political journey. He now stands to become the MAGA standard-bearer in a state Trump won handily in 2016 and 2020. It will be interesting to see if Vance receives support from Indian Americans in the state due to his wife. The couple has been married since 2014, and they have three children—two boys and a girl.

Chilukuri works as an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. She focuses on complex civil litigation and appeals in a wide variety of sectors, including higher education, local government, entertainment and technology. Chilukuri collaborates with the firm’s San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices and has been licensed to practice law in California since June 2016.

Chilukuri and Vance met while they were both law students at Yale. She grew up in San Diego, California, and attended Mt. Carmel High School. Chilukuri moved to the East Coast for college and earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 2007. In 2009, she attended the University of Cambridge for a Master of Philosophy degree as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She focused on the career of John Field, a printer who operated between 1642 and 1668 in London and Cambridge, and her MPhil project investigated the methods used for protecting printing rights in seventeenth-century England.

Chilukuri returned to Yale for her law degree, during which she served as the executive development editor of the Yale Law Journal and as managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Technology. She clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts and, before that, for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit under then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2018. Chilukuri also clerked for Judge Amul Thapar at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2013 to 2014.

Her husband Vance is set to face Democrat U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in November to replace retiring Sen. Vance is known for his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," which was made into a Netflix movie in 2020. Vance wrote about how Usha helped him realize that he carried burdens from his tumultuous upbringing even after achieving all his dreams. He mentioned that she pointed out his lack of conflict-resolution skills and that he feared becoming like his mother. Chilukuri advised him to talk to her to resolve conflicts, helping him see her perspective and improving their communication. His books provide a passionate and personal analysis of white working-class Americans' crisis. He portrays the experience of social, regional and class decline as deeply ingrained from birth.

J.D. Vance's victory in the Ohio GOP Senate primary positions him as a prominent figure in conservative politics. Supported by his wife, Vance brings a personal narrative of overcoming adversity and embracing opportunity to his campaign. As the election approaches, all eyes will be on whether Vance can translate his narrative into a successful Senate bid and how his platform resonates with voters across Ohio.