Mr. & Mrs. Vance: Does the vice president have a presidential problem?
WILL USHA CHILUKURI Vance’s Hindu faith scupper husband JD Vance’s chances to succeed Donald Trump as the next US president in 2028? Two caveats. First, even if JD wins the Republican presidential nomination in the primaries that begin in 2027, the Democrats are favourites to reclaim the White House. Second, Vance’s popularity in opinion polls has plunged to -21 per cent. It is the lowest level for a serving US vice president since modern polling began. Even the deeply unpopular Kamala Harris had a negative rating of -3 per cent. Trump’s first-term vice president Mike Pence had a rating of -7 per cent.
How much has second lady Usha Vance contributed to Vance’s unpopularity? A double law graduate from Yale University, Usha has long been in the crosshairs of MAGA’s stormtroopers. White supremacist Nick Fuentes has repeatedly attacked Usha with slurs against her Indian heritage. Fuentes called JD Vance a “race traitor” for marrying her. Vance has strongly defended his wife who recently gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, calling out the racist and ethnic hate directed against her.
In an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Carl, Vance said: “My attitude to these people attacking my wife is she’s beautiful, she’s smart. What kind of man marries Usha? A very smart man and a very lucky man. And my view is, look, if these guys want to attack me or attack my views, my policy views, my personality, come after me. But don’t attack my wife. She’s out of your league.”
Interestingly, Vance—who married Usha, the US-born daughter of immigrant parents from Andhra Pradesh, in 2014—was a harsh critic of Donald Trump in 2016 when Trump launched his campaign for the November 2016 presidential election. In October 2016, Vance told Politico: “The Trump people are certainly more racist than the average white US professional.”
Vance warned that Trump’s rhetoric would cause white people to “become more racist over time.” That warning, coming a decade ago, when Vance was a 32-year-old Silicon Valley investor with no connection to politics, proved prophetic. Vance would enter politics five years later, in 2021. He won the Ohio Senate seat in November 2022 and took office in January 2023.
By now Vance had become an enthusiastic Trump supporter. He was rewarded with Trump picking him as his running mate in his 2024 presidential campaign. It was the quickest turnaround in US presidential history: a vocal Trump critic appointed the Republican Party’s vice president nominee ahead of other favourites in Trump’s bid for a second presidential term. Vance’s own somersault from being Trump critic to Trump fanboy caused both debate and mirth in Washington.
It is this perceived flaw in Vance’s character that has triggered scepticism about his leadership qualities. The Democratic Party incessantly parodies him as a quick-change artist with a worldview based on political expedience. MAGA’s rightwing regards Vance as too centrist. Vance was the only senior member of the Trump cabinet to oppose the Iran war. MAGA is now blaming him for failed negotiations to end the war. The MAGA movement has always backed a non-interventionist foreign policy. The Iran war has undermined Vance’s position as Trump’s designated peacemaker.
Vance defends Usha from attacks by MAGA racists but often speaks with a forked tongue to appease white supremacists because they are key Trump backers. Vance said he hopes one day Usha—an observant Hindu—will convert to Christianity. In response, Usha publicly declared that she would not change her faith which gives her great comfort. In a compromise, however, the four Vance children are being raised as churchgoing Catholics. Of the four, only one, Vivek, has an Indian name. The other three are named Ewan, Mirabel, and Alec.
Fuentes has over one million followers on Elon Musk’s X where he posts incendiary material aimed at both Vance and Trump who he says have betrayed MAGA’s position against immigration, foreign wars and non-white people. Usha Vance, a distinguished former litigator, falls into the third category.
Following the publication of his book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance said this to Politico about Trump: “People are not that strongly attached to Trump; he is a vehicle to attach their anger to, but they don’t especially love him.” This was in 2016. Ten years is a long time in politics.