Usha Vance just kicked off her husband's likability tour

The JD Vance likability tour has begun.

And it’s headlined by none other than his wife, second lady Usha Vance, who is pregnant with the couple’s fourth child. The high-powered, Yale-trained lawyer and former Democrat launched her podcast, “Storytime With the Second Lady,” this week. She told NBC News it will be “an advertisement for reading.” But, let’s face it: This is also a political advertisement designed to bolster her profile and sand off her husband’s rough edges as he prepares his White House bid.

Humanizing plays like this have always been part of a political wife’s unofficial duties. It’s a gendered and rather cringe job as a palatable, not pushy saleslady for her husband. In that same 30-minute interview with NBC News, Usha Vance didn’t sound anything like a MAGA adherent. Instead, she sounded like an independent voter and thinker, who also fits in well with the MAGA crowd, even if she doesn’t own one of the hats.

“I do feel very comfortable in that no one has ever asked me to engage in any kind of litmus test on anything. And what I’ve found is that I was myself in 2014. I can be myself today,” she said, referring to her time as a registered Democrat. “I don’t feel like I have to walk around pretending anything of any sort. I didn’t think I had to do that [in 2014], actually. Sometimes I have thoughts that fit very comfortably into one side or another. Sometimes I have views that are way more idiosyncratic.”

In what sociologists would call an indirect appeal, she added, “It’s a world that I think is actually rather accepting of that.” In other words, all are welcome in JD Vance’s big tent version of MAGA, former Democrats and Independents alike.

This, of course, is far from the vice president’s combative style of politics, which includes calling former presidents “dumb,” lying about immigrants eating dogs and dressing down allies. The second lady offers a broader entry point. She’s a counterweight to her husband’s brusque and humorless style and his often radical approach to policy. How bad can JD Vance be - how bad can MAGA be - if this is his wife, and she shops at Costco, just like the rest of us? That is the work that Usha Vance is doing: helping to craft a kinder, gentler version of her husband.

And so far, their ambitious pairing has been quite successful: It has steered JD Vance’s career from best-selling memoirist and anti-Trump pundit to vice president in less than a decade. That doesn’t happen without a real strategy, even if it requires shape-shifting, which the vice president has mastered. He announced Tuesday on X that he will publish a book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, in June. That’s more image softening.

The Vances, however, face considerable headwinds, even as the vice president is leading early 2028 polls as the preferred nominee among GOPers. Not only will JD Vance effectively be asking for a third term for Donald Trump, he will also be doing it saddled with his MAGA baggage sans any of the president’s charisma. On his own, the vice president seems awkward and inauthentic. (Google him and donuts.) His frequently furrowed brow and seemingly forced laughter don’t help.

Recall that he was the least-liked non-incumbent vice presidential nominee since 1980, and his current approval rating of around 40% puts him in the running for the least-liked vice president in history, too. Which is where the second lady comes in.

All of this comes as a straw poll of attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference shows Secretary of State Marco Rubio gaining ground against JD Vance as the next Republican presidential nominee. He led Rubio by 58 percentage points in last year’s poll but now only leads by 18. The vice president, however, said in December that he won’t formally make a decision about running to succeed Trump until after the midterms.

Don’t believe him.

JD Vance is already running for president, which means launching another, more likable version of himself with his wife’s help. So far, he has defied many of the rules of politics by rapidly ascending to the top, leaping over others and flip-flopping on his way up. But his next act will have to be his finest performance, even with Usha Vance as part of the supporting cast.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.