Vice President JD Vance announced Sunday morning that his wife Usha has given birth to their fourth child — a boy named Alec Neel Vance. Mother and baby are healthy, and the couple's three older children — Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel, ages nine, six, and four — reportedly can't stop hovering over their new brother.
"We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning," Vance posted on X. "Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother."
The birth is a historic one. The last time a sitting vice president's wife gave birth was the 1870s — when Ulysses S. Grant was in the White House. Usha Vance, 40, is the Second Lady of the United States, making this one of the rarest events in American political history.
The pregnancy was announced in January 2026, with a due date in late July. The decision to have a fourth child — one Usha had initially been uncertain about — grew out of one of the harder moments of the past year.
When conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September 2025, JD Vance sat with his widow, Erika, in the immediate aftermath. Through tears, Erika told them she regretted having only two children with Charlie. Vance recounts the moment in his book "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," published earlier this year.
"I think it really heightened JD's sense that he'd been talking about this for a while — this sense that there was this possibility of having another kid whom he could love as much as the three that we had," Usha said in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning. She was careful to note that Kirk's death wasn't the decisive moment so much as an intensification of a conversation they were already having. "I think I had already started to open my mind to the possibility. I wouldn't say this was for me in any way the decisive factor, but it came in the middle of a conversation that we were already having."
"I remember when we decided to run for vice president, I said, 'Honey, I really want to have a fourth kid,'" Vance has said publicly. They made the decision together, and Usha said she found herself feeling "more and more, kind of, excited about that possibility."
Th VP has said he is unlikely to take extended parental leave, acknowledging the job doesn't allow for a long absence.
The name carries meaning. Neel is Usha's family name — a nod to her Indian-American heritage. The Vances now have two boys and two girls, all four under the age of ten.
