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While Usha Vance has been a vocal supporter of her husband's vice-presidential campaign from the get-go, the same can't really be said of his running mate. Once upon a time, Usha was pro-Hillary Clinton.
News of Usha's previous support for Clinton came in August 2024. An unnamed source told The Daily Beast that JD Vance had told someone in his circle about how his wife planned to vote in the 2016 election. Not that it's likely JD was speaking about it in an "OMG she's voting for Clinton" way, though. After all, one of the strange things about JD that we can't ignore is his previously anti-Trump stance, and back in 2016, JD told NPR he was likely to select Clinton, himself — but only if he was concerned Trump stood a plausible chance of winning the election.
Usha wasn't quite as vocal about her reasons for voting Clinton. In fact, other than the fact that it's known she was previously registered as a Democrat, she isn't particularly open about her personal politics, in general. Speaking to Daily Mail, several people claiming to be close to the Yale alum revealed that was the case. That may be something of a family policy, as several different individuals who were close with Usha's parents told the outlet the same thing. With that in mind, JD telling people about Usha's vote for Clinton was a pretty big deal in itself (though we doubt it was a sign of his shady side). However, something tells us we won't be hearing more about her enthusiasm for the 2016 hopeful any time soon.
Usha says she believes in both Trump and JD
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While it's unlikely Usha Vance will speak about her past support for Hillary Clinton, she has broken her self-imposed rule regarding not speaking about politics. In an interview with "Fox & Friends," Usha opened up about her change of heart when it came to Donald Trump. Speaking of her newfound support for the Republican candidate, she explained, "If I didn't feel that the ticket, the Trump-Vance ticket, was able to do some real good for the country, then I wouldn't be here supporting him, and JD wouldn't have done this."
Fair enough — though we still doubt she'd be as open if her husband wasn't Trump's running mate. After all, in the same interview, she made a point of noting that she didn't love having the shine on her. In fact, her hesitations over being in the spotlight were so great that ahead of her speech at the Republican National Convention, she toyed with the idea of pulling out. What's more, our body language expert previously pointed out JD Vance's wife's tension in a pre-VP interview.
Even with the attention she's had to acclimatize to, Usha has used her new public profile to hint at the precise reason why she's never liked speaking about politics in the past. Speaking of a past friend of hers and JD's who had insinuated JD was anti-police, she told "Fox & Friends,", "It is hard to know that sometimes politics comes in the way of friendships." Nevertheless, she took the high road. "I can't speak to why they say what they say or do what they do, but I care about them and wish them well," she said. Usha may have to talk politics nowadays, but it's clear she's doing it on her terms.