WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance announced Sunday the birth of their fourth child, a son named Alec Neel Vance, marking the first time a sitting U.S. vice president has welcomed a newborn while in office in more than 150 years.
Alec was born the morning of July 19 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In a joint statement, the couple said Usha and the baby were “happy and healthy” and that their three older children were “overjoyed to meet their little brother.”
The newborn joins brothers Ewan, 9, and Vivek, 6, and sister Mirabel, 4. The Vances, married since 2014, had announced the pregnancy in January and said they expected a son in late July.
The couple thanked physicians and staff at Walter Reed and the White House Medical Unit. Days later, Usha Vance shared family photographs and wrote that they were settling into life as a family of six, adding a light note about the challenge of getting four children into one decent picture.
The birth is historically rare. According to the White House Historical Association, the last child born to a sitting vice president was Schuyler Colfax III in 1870, when Schuyler Colfax served under President Ulysses S. Grant. Before that, Vice President John C. Calhoun welcomed a son in 1829.
President Donald Trump congratulated the family, calling Alec “a perfect baby boy for the wonderful Vance family.”
Vance has long spoken publicly about family and declining U.S. birth rates. The couple has generally kept their children’s daily lives private even as their official roles have grown more visible. For Mirabel, who was old enough to understand a baby was coming, the arrival made her an older sister in a very immediate way. For Ewan and Vivek, it added another brother to a household already balancing public duties with ordinary childhood.
Alec’s arrival is both a private milestone and a public first: a new chapter for the second family and the first vice-presidential baby of the modern era.
