Telugu vs Tamil: Social Media Debates Usha Vance and Kamala Harris’s Indian Roots
Donald Trump may have won the 2024 US presidential election and denied Kamala Harris a historic moment, but Indians have reasons to cheer.

Telugu vs Tamil: Donald Trump may have won the 2024 US presidential election and denied Kamala Harris a historic moment, but Indians have reasons to cheer. One of them is the India connection of Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Trump’s running mate and now the vice president-elect, JD Vance.
The desi fanbase has now shifted its focus to Usha Chilukuri Vance whose parents are from Chilakaluripeta, Andhra Pradesh. Andhra is one of the two Telugu states.
This is happening at a time when the Telugu-speaking population in the US has quadrupled from 3.2 lakh in 2016 to 12.3 lakh in 2024. Telugu is now the 11th most spoken foreign language and the third most spoken Indian language in the US.
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Usha Chilukuri Vance was born and brought up in California, the state with the largest Telugu-speaking population with nearly 200,000 residents.
Such is the political clout of the small Indian community in the US that Indians would have won either way. Prayers were held for both the Democrats and Republicans in two villages in India.
Thousands of miles away from the US, a temple in Tamil Nadu’s Thulasendrapuram village reverberated with chants and hymns as villagers gathered to pray for Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris. The villagers have a special connection with Harris as it is the ancestral home of her mother Shyamala Gopalan who was born in Chennai before her family moved to the US.
Meanwhile, in Vadluru village in Andhra Pradesh, nearly a thousand km north, special prayers were offered for JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate and the Republican candidate for Vice President. Vance who is going to be the next Vice President of the US is married to Usha Vance who has roots in this Andhra village.
Chilakaluripeta is the native village of Usha’s parents, an engineer and a biologist. Usha was born in the US where her parents had migrated. Usha Vance who is a practising Hindu had earlier praised JD Vance for being a vegetarian.
With Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, India’s fanbase which was rooting for Kamala Harris for the past four years has now shifted its focus to Usha Chilukuri Vance.
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Usha attended Yale Law School where she met her future husband JD Vance in 2013. They worked together to organize a discussion group on the topic “social decline in white America” as per The New York Times.
She is a skilled litigator who worked at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in San Francisco and Washington DC from 2015 to 2017 and then as a law clerk for the US Supreme Court in 2018. She returned to Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in January 2019 as per people.com.
Usha has been his partner in every sense of the word in his political journey, accompanying him to events and providing guidance.
Kamala was from Tamil Nadu, Usha is from Andhra Pradesh. The spotlight shifts from Kamala to Usha at a time when Indian Americans are shifting from Democratic to Republican. While many Indian Americans have traditionally been Democratic, there are more and more Indian Americans in the Republican party.
The "Indian Americans at the Ballot Box" survey released on October 28 by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found Indian Americans still support the Democratic party. But it also found a slight tilt towards Republicans.
In 2024, 57% of Indian Americans identified as Democrats, down from 66% in 2020, and 27% identified as Republicans, up from 18% according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In 2020 Presidential election, 68% of Indian Americans supported Democratic nominee Joe Biden and 22% supported Republican incumbent Donald Trump. By 2024, this has split to 60% for Democratic Harris and 30% for Republican Trump. Indian-origin women support Harris, men support Trump.
It’s not just a change of political party but also a broader trend where Indian origin Americans are getting more and more diverse in their political affiliations and choices.
Kamala and Usha represent two different aspects of the Indian American dream and experience and that’s what shows the diversity and success of the community.
The Trump win comes at a time when the numbers of people from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are on the rise and there will be a loud Telugu cheer. Now the Desi focus will be on Usha Chilukuri Vance.
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