As JD Vance and Tim Walz prepare to face off in Tuesday’s debate, the vice presidential candidates have spent months campaigning around the country since their sudden rise to national politics. So have two key players who help shape messaging and public images: their wives.
While Usha Vance acts more as a behind-the-scenes adviser, Gwen Walz hits the campaign trail in key states as a spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign in the months leading up to the election.
Gwen Walz, originally from Minnesota and a former public school teacher for many years, has always played a major role in her husband’s political career. “We’ve always worked as partners,” he said in an interview in July. “We really work together and there are issues where I do a lot of work and share ideas and briefings with him.”
Usha Vance, who had a notable career as an attorney before and during her husband’s campaign, has been less in front of the cameras — she hasn’t spoken on behalf of the Trump-Vance campaign at a public event since. introducing her husband at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. But the Vances use each other as sounding boards and partners to think things through, she said in a rare interview.
“I think he takes everything I say very seriously and respectfully. And it becomes part of the way he thinks about things, as it’s true for me,” Usha Vance said on Fox News a few weeks after the Republican convention. “The way he talks about things and the conclusions he comes to really shapes the way I think about things, so There’s also a nice give and take, but I think it’s pretty happy.”
Both potential second ladies are involved in preparations for Tuesday’s debate: Usha Vance helped guide her husband as she and his advisers worked on his debate strategyA source directly involved in the preparations told NBC News that Gwen Walz ran last week in Harbor Springs, Michigan as the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Usha Vance often takes the stage with her husband at the start of state events on the battlefield — introduced with a loudspeaker as “the next vice president and second lady of the United States” — and travels with him and his family to provide that voice. board. She usually travels light as the campaign hops in and out of their planes and vehicles — though the couple’s three young children can be seen on the go, Usha Vans carrying loose toys into the cabin or helping Secret Service agents strap car seats into the motorcade’s SUVs. .
Taking questions from attendees at a town hall-like event in suburban Pittsburgh, JD Vance told an audience member that his wife had started “a little bit of homeschooling” with their 7-year-old son. they travel. She left the law firm shortly after her husband was nominated to join the Trump campaign.
Tim Walz’s daughter Hope accompanies him more often on the campaign trail, while Gwen Walz has held numerous solo events in battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. The governor of Minnesota often tells a story about how Gwen stepped up to speak at a fundraiser during her time in Congress when she was suffering from laryngitis.
“He should be running,” he joked at a fundraiser in Bethesda, Maryland.
When not attending events alone, Walz is sometimes joined by Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, who travels the country speaking and fundraising for the Democratic ticket.
In her events, Gwen Walz focuses more on education, drawing on her and her husband’s experience as teachers and focusing on what she calls “personal” reproductive rights for her family.
“We struggled to start a family and were only able to start a family because we had access to fertility treatments. And even then it was quite a journey and it took a long time,” he explained last week during a solo campaign in Lansing, Michigan.
They participated in an interview with Gwen and Tim Walz during the Democratic National Convention Glamour highlights her struggle with infertility and the use of IUI (intrauterine insemination) to have children.
JD Vance took to social media Calling out Tim Walz for making earlier references to using IVF. “Today it was revealed that Tim Walz lied about having a family through IVF. Who would lie about something like that?’
Gwen Walz defended herself at her event: “I’m going to use my teacher voice here, my tough teacher voice, and send a message to them, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, please consider yourselves. work,” he said in Lansing.
Usha Vance also came out to defend JD Vance. In an interview with Fox News after the GOP convention, she repeated her defense of her husband’s criticism of a 2021 comment likening the Democratic leadership to “childless cat ladies,” describing the remark as “a sarcasm to make a point.” it was reasonable and had a real meaning.”
“What he’s really saying is that being a parent in this country can be really hard, and sometimes our policies are designed to make it harder,” she said.
Long before JD Vance became a senator and later the Republican vice presidential nominee, Usha Vance was his longtime business partner.
In the acknowledgments of his oft-cited memoir Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance wrote, “Last but certainly not least, my lovely wife Usha, who read every word of my manuscript literally dozens of times, offered the necessary feedback (even though I didn’t want it!). Quit.” supported me when I needed it and celebrated with me as I progressed.” He added that “a lot of credit goes to him for both this book and the happy life I’ve had.”