The Second Ladies (and Gentleman) of the RNC

Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce his pick for Vice President before or during the Republican National Convention beginning on Monday in Milwaukee. Making a rare public appearance in support of her husband’s campaign, Melania Trump will also be joined at the RNC by the Second Ladies in waiting.

Usha Chilukuri Vance, 38

Occupation: Attorney

Chilukuri Vance’s meet cute with Ohio Senator J.D. Vance began during their first year at Yale Law School, where the two were placed in the same “small group” of students who took every class together. Their relationship blossomed with the encouragement of Amy Chua, the prominent and controversial law professor, who became a mentor to them both.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Chilukuri Vance was raised in a well-to-do enclave outside of San Diego, CA. Her parents worked as mechanical engineers and biologists.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University, before studying for a master’s degree in philosophy at Cambridge University in England courtesy of a scholarship funded by Bill Gates.

After attending Yale Law School, Chilukuri Vance went on to complete multiple federal clerkships including one for Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

In 2017, she clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts on the Supreme Court, before entering private practice at Munger, Tolles & Olson where she has helped defend a multitude of high profile clients including the Walt Disney Company and the Motion Picture Association.

Outside of the courtroom Chilukuri Vance sits on the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, her husband said he was “astonished” that people listened to classical music for pleasure.

She and the senator wed in 2014 and share three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. The Vance family and their two dogs, Pippin and Casper, call a 5,000 square-foot house on several acres in Cincinnati home.

Kathryn Burgum, 60

Occupation: First Lady of North Dakota

Kathryn Helgaas first crossed paths with Doug Burgum in the late 1990s. She worked at Great Plains Software, he was the boss. In 2006, three years after Burgum divorced his first wife, Karen Stoker, with whom he has three children, they began dating.

It was only in 2016, days before he was to be sworn in as governor that Burgum and Helgaas quietly married; he announced the news on Twitter.

Before becoming first lady, Burgum–raised in Jamestown, ND as the youngest of four–had worked in human resources and marketing. But a year into her time in the governor’s mansion, she revealed that she had been in recovery from alcoholism for the previous 15 years after becoming addicted in high school.

Now she focuses on addiction both in North Dakota–she chairs the Advisory Council for the Office of Recovery Reinvented–and beyond. She was at the White House when Donald Trump declared opioid addiction an epidemic in 2017 and is a trustee of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.

Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, 50

Occupation: Consultant

Dousdebes Rubio and Marco Rubio’s romance started in 1990 at a West Miami Recreation Center party. She was 17, he was 19.

The child of Colombian emigrants, Dousdebes Rubio was born in Florida and raised by a single mother.

After high school, she attended Miami Dade College while working part time as a bank teller.

In 1997, she did a one season stint as a Miami Dolphins cheerleader where she posed for the team's first swimsuit calendar.

After retiring her pom poms, Dousdebes Rubio enrolled in International Fine Arts College, now Miami International University of Art & Design. She left without a degree, after becoming pregnant with her first of four children in 1998, the same year she and Rubio wed.

As her husband's political career took off, Dousdebes Rubio dedicated much of her time to motherhood, keeping the Rubio family together, and her Christian faith.

She served on the board of directors of several non profits including the faith based Agape Network, an organization focused on addressing mental health issues. In 2020, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed her to the Florida Statewide Council on Human Trafficking.

Dousdebes Rubio is the founder and current president of JDR Consulting, a firm that helps charitable organizations evaluate grant requests.

She and the senator live walking distance from where they first met and have four children: Daniella, Amanda, Dominick and Anthony.

Mindy Noce, 47

Occupation: Interior Designer

The fiancé of longtime bachelor Sen. Tim Scott, connected with the South Carolina lawmaker in Sep. 2023 on a Bible study app, later bonding over playing pickleball, dining out, and going to the zoo.

Scott proposed to his “lovely Christian girl” this January, just months after the couple's public debut at the GOP primary debate last November.

A longtime South Carolina resident, Noce earned an undergraduate degree in Health Science at the College of Charleston. She is an avid runner and tennis enthusiast, having developed an interest in athletics early in life.

Noce works as the Design and Renovations Manager for Charleston-based firm Atlantic Properties.

She is the mother of three children from a previous marriage.

William Michael Haley, 54

Occupation: businessman and officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard

Haley met Nikki Randhawa at Clemson University in 1989. She was 17-years-old and a freshman. He was 19, in a relationship and attended nearby Anderson University. The two coupled-up soon after.

Born in Ohio, Haley’s early childhood was challenging. He entered foster care at age three and was adopted alongside his sister at four-years-old by Bill and Carole Haley.

During his wife’s first term as a South Carolina state representative in 2006, Haley finished his undergraduate degree and joined the South Carolina Army National Guard as a federal technician in human resources.

In 2012, Haley volunteered to teach farmers in Afghanistan how to sell crops other than opium. He returned to Afghanistan the following year for his first deployment as part of an agribusiness team, and recently served his second deployment in the horn of Africa during his wife’s 2024 presidential campaign.

The National Guardsman also manages income from his wife’s speeches and book sales and a family investment portfolio. In 2022, Haley was one of several politically connected individuals with ties to a company that received a share of slot machine profits from a tribal casino in North Carolina.

Haley married his college sweetheart in 1996 and they have two children, Rena and Nalin.