Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of firebrand Ohio Senator and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, used her primetime speech at this week’s Republican National Convention not to play up her husband’s MAGA credentials—but to highlight how her own personal background differed from many of the people cheering on Trump and his movement.
Vance famously portrayed his own childhood growing up in the Midwest with a family originally from rural Kentucky in his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Vance’s memoir was a bestseller that received rave reviews from a litany of liberal publications, and was eventually adapted into a film starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams, and directed by Ron Howard.
When Usha was given the opportunity to introduce her husband on Wednesday evening, she highlighted other aspects of her and Vance’s story—some of which might seem odd compared to his cultivated identity as a working-class loyalist and hard-right MAGA Republican.
