WASHINGTON – Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance announced Sunday that they have welcomed their fourth child, marking the first birth to a sitting vice president’s family in more than 150 years.
Their son, Alec Neel Vance, was born Sunday and joins three older siblings: Ewan, 9; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4.
Vance shared the news in a social media post, releasing a statement signed by both him and his wife.
“We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning. Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the statement said.
The couple also expressed gratitude to the doctors and staff at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, as well as the White House medical team.
The Republican vice president’s expanding family aligns with one of his most frequently voiced public themes: encouraging Americans to have more children. Vance has also suggested that the 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a friend of his, influenced the couple’s decision to have another child.
A former U.S. Marine, Vance began speaking forcefully about falling birth rates in the United States as he entered national politics in 2021 during his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio. As vice president, he returned to that message at the 2025 March for Life anti-abortion rally in Washington, telling the crowd, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
Vance, 41, has often traveled abroad with Usha Vance, 40, and their children. The family has become a familiar sight on Air Force Two, with the children frequently boarding in pajamas ahead of overnight flights.
Usha Vance, the daughter of immigrants from India, had already been the subject of some public fascination because of her husband. Her pregnancy, which was announced in January, amplified that spotlight since it is rare for occupants of the United States’ highest public offices to add to their families while serving.
The last time a sitting vice president became a new father was in the 1800s.
Schuyler Colfax and his second wife, Ellen Wade, had a son, Schuyler Colfax III, in 1870 when Colfax was serving as vice president, according to the White House Historical Association. Decades before that, John C. Calhoun and his wife, Floride Bonneau, had a son, William, in 1829 when Calhoun was vice president, the association said.
The newest addition to Vance’s family was part of a recent mini baby boom among top members of President Donald Trump’s administration. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, recently gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had her second child with her husband, Nicholas Riccio, in May.
Usha Vance recently came under scrutiny after The New York Times’ fashion critic called attention to the stomach-hugging, coral maternity dress she wore for a Father’s Day episode of “Storytime with the Second Lady,” a video podcast she launched during the pregnancy.
The Times wrote that the attention that Vance, Miller and Leavitt had put on their pregnancies offered “an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement,” which encourages couples to have as many children as possible to counter declining birth rates.
The second lady responded on social media, writing, “Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks! In the meantime, enjoy my pregnancy fashion (or lack thereof) and a good story with your kids on Storytime with the Second Lady.” She later shared the receipt for the dress, and her husband applauded her frugality.
“She bought a $50 dress for $8.75. America: meet your next director of the federal budget!” the vice president wrote on social media.
JD Vance has said it was Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, telling them that she wished she’d had more than two children with her husband before he was assassinated last September in Utah that led him and the second lady to decide to grow their family. Usha Vance, a former attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, concurred — in part.
“It was very powerful, what (Erika) said about her own family, and certainly very moving to both of us. I think I had already started to open my mind to the possibility,” Usha Vance said during a joint interview with her husband for “CBS Sunday Morning” that aired in June. “I wouldn’t say that this was, for me in any way, the decisive factor. But it came in the middle of a conversation that we were already having.”
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of Vice President JD Vance at
