Who Are The Partners Of The Political Leaders Of America?

Published on April 27, 2023
Life in politics is no easy path to take on, but it is the partners of political leaders who sometimes have to face obstacles and situations that they may have never expected and never really signed up for. Despite these difficulties, the better halves of political figures often handle their roles with grace, and can even become just as influential as their political partners themselves. Here are the men and women behind the politicians of America.

Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump

Ivanka Trump married Jared Kushner in 2009, and we’re willing to bet that Kushner had no idea that they would all end up with such close ties to the White House. After spending time in DC, the couple moved to South Florida, where they live with their three children. Kushner is a businessman and investor who has worked extensively in real estate ventures.

Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump

Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump

Nikki Haley & Michael Haley

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley married Michael Haley in 1996. They have both Methodist and Sikh ceremonies in honor of both of their backgrounds. They have two children together. Michael is a commissioned officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard, and he specializes in Security Cooperation.

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Nikki Haley & Michael Haley

Nikki Haley & Michael Haley

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders & Bryan Chatfield Sanders

Sarah Huckabee Sanders met Bryan Chatfield Sanders while working on her father’s presidential campaign in 2008. She was working as the field director of the campaign while he was a media consultant. They tied the knot in 2010 and now have three kids together. Bryan is a political strategist as well.

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders & Bryan Chatfield Sanders

Sarah Huckabee Sanders & Bryan Chatfield Sanders

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Kari Lake & Jeff Halperin

Kari Lake is a former TV news anchor who ran for Arizona governor in 2022. losing out to Democrat Katie Jobbs. She married her husband Jeff Halperin in 1998. They share two children together, and Halperin pretty much stays off social media, which likely gives him some peace and quiet despite his wife’s high profile.

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Kari Lake & Jeff Halperin

Kari Lake & Jeff Halperin

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Ted & Heidi Cruz

U.S. senator from Texas Ted Cruz has been involved in politics for many years, and even ran for president in 2016. He married Heidi Nelson in May 2001, and they have two daughters together. Heidi is a managing director at Goldman Sachs and has supported her husband throughout his many political campaigns.

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Ted & Heidi Cruz

Ted & Heidi Cruz

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Marco Rubio & Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio

Marco Rubio is the U.S. senator from Florida who has been in that position since 2011. In 1998, he married Jeanette Dousdebes, who is a former bank teller and Miami Dolphins cheerleader. They have four children together and Jeanette has taken on the lion’s share of raising them while supporting her husband’s political career.

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Marco Rubio & Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio

Marco Rubio & Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio

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Rand & Kelley Paul

Rand Paul is the U.S. senator from Kentucky, which he has been since 2011. He is also a physician. After meeting her at a party in Atlanta in 1988, he married Kelley Ashby in 1990, and they now have three sons together. Kelley is a freelance writer.

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Rand & Kelly Paul

Rand & Kelley Paul

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Cory Booker & Rosario Dawson

Cory Booker is an attorney who is serving as the U.S. senator from New Jersey, and has been since 2013. Booker began dating actress Rosario Dawson in 2019. Dawson is known for her roles in films and TV shows like Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett. Their relationship ended in February 2022. Booker has never been married.

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Cory Booker & Rosario Dawson

Cory Booker & Rosario Dawson

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Riley Roberts

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is often referred to as AOC, has served as the U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district since 2019. She is engaged to Riley Roberts, who is a web developer. They met in 2011 while they were studying at Boston University, and dated on and off until getting engaged in 2022.

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Alexandria Ocasio Cortez & Riley Roberts

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez & Riley Roberts

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Donald & Melania Trump

Donald Trump served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 until 2021. He’s married to Melania Trump, who is his third wife, who is the former First Lady. She was born in Slovenia and moved to New York in 1996 to pursue her modeling career. She married Trump in 2005. They have one son together named Barron. She was the second naturalized US citizen to become First Lady, the first being Louisa Adams.

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Donald & Melania Trump

Donald & Melania Trump

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Pete Buttigieg & Chasten Glezman

Pete Buttigieg is the U.S. Secretary of Transportation who was previously the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He ran for president in 2020, becoming one of the first openly gay men to run for a presidential campaign for a major party. He is married to Chasten Glezman, who is a teacher, writer, and LGBT+ activist. They met on dating app Hinge in 2015 and got married in 2018. They have a son and a daughter together.

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Pete Buttigieg & Chasten Glezman

Pete Buttigieg & Chasten Glezman

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Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly

Gabby Giffords is a retired politician who is also a gun control activist. She has served as a member of the US House of Representatives as Arizona’s 8th congressional district representative. She retired after she survived an assassination attempt in 2012. She is married to former astronaut Mark Kelly, who himself is now a politician, serving as the U.S. from Arizona since 2020. They met in 2003 while on a trip to China, and they married in November 2007.

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Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly

Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly

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Mike & Karen Pence

Mike Pence served as the 48th Vice President of the United States from 2017 until 2021 under President Donald Trump. He was also the governor of Indiana and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He married Karen Batten while she was playing guitar at Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas Church. They married in 1985 and have three children together. She is a teacher and a painter.

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Mike & Karen Pence

Mike & Karen Pence

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Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy Carter served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 until 1981. He was also the governor of Georgia and a Georgia state senator. He married Rosalynn Smith in July 1946 and the couple have three sons and a daughter together. They also have nine grandsons, three granddaughters, five great-grandsons, and eight great-granddaughters. In July 2022, they celebrated 76 years of marriage, the longest-wed presidential couple to date.

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Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter

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Barack & Michelle Obama

Barack Obama served as the 44th president of the United States after being the U.S. senator from Illinois as Illinois state senator. He is married to Michelle Obama, who he met while they were both working at Sidley Austin, a Chicago law firm. They were marred in October 1992. They have two daughters together. Michelle is an attorney and author whose book Becoming has sold 11.5 million copies by November 2019 and has been adapted to a documentary. She is also the host of The Michelle Obama Podcast.

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Barack & Michelle Obama

Barack & Michelle Obama

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Elizabeth Warren & Bruce H. Mann

Elizabeth Warren is a politician and former law professor who is the U.S. senator from Massachusetts. She is married to Bruce H. Mann, who is a law professor. They married in 1980. The two met while at a conference.

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Elizabeth Warren & Bruce H. Mann

Elizabeth Warren & Bruce H. Mann

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Bill & Hillary Clinton

Bill Clinton served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 until 2011. Hillary Clinton served as the 67th United States secretary of state under president Barack Obama. The two met while they were studying at Yale University, and they got married in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Their only daughter Chelsea was born in 1980. The two are grandparents to Chelsea’s three children.

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Bill & Hillary Clinton

Bill & Hillary Clinton

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Ben & Candy Carson

Ben Carson is retired neurosurgeon and politician who was the 17th US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 until 2021. He also ran for president in 2016. He is married to Candy Rustin, who is an author and businesswoman. She has co-authored four books with her husband. The two met while they were students at Yale, and she later earned her MBA from Johns Hopkins University. They have three children together.

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Ben & Candy Carson

Ben & Candy Carson

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George W. Bush & Laura Bush

George W. Bush served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 and 2009. He was also the governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He met schoolteacher and librarian Laura Welch at a backyard barbecue after friends introduced them. They dated for three month before becoming engaged. They married shortly after in November 1977. They have two daughters together, twins Barbara and Jenna.

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George W. Bush & Laura Bush

George W. Bush & Laura Bush

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Nancy & Paul Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi served as the 52nd speaker of the US House of Representatives from 2007 until 2011 and from 2019 until 2023. She met Paul Francis Pelosi while she was in college and the two got married in September 1963. The couple has five children together, as well as nine grandchildren. Paul is a businessman who it the owner of Financial Leasing Services, Inc., a real estate and venture capital investment and consulting firm.

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Nancy & Paul Pelosi

Nancy & Paul Pelosi

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Al Gore & Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson “Tipper” Gore

Al Gore served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 until 2001. He met Mary Elizabeth “Tipper” Aitcheson at his senior prom in 1965 and they got married in May 1970. They have four children together. After 40 years of marriage, the two announced that they were separating in 2010, shocking the world. Tipper is an activist, photographer, and author.

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Al Gore & Mary Elizabeth Aitchson Gore

Al Gore & Mary Elizabeth Aitchson Gore

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John Kerry & Teresa Heinz

John Kerry is the US special presidential envoy for climate and has previously served as the secretary of state from 2013 to 2017. Kerry met Teresa Heinz at an Earth Day rally in 1990. They got married in May 1995. Teresa is a philanthropist and businesswoman and now the chair of Heinz Endowments as well as the Heinz Family Philanthropies.

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John Kerry & Teresa Heinz

John Kerry & Teresa Heinz

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Joseph P. Kennedy III & Lauren Anne Birchfield

Joseph Kennedy III serves as the US Special Envoy got Northern Ireland. He is the grandnephew of president John F. Kennedy. He married Lauren Anne Birchfield, a health policy lawyer, in December 2012 after the two met at a Harvard Law class, which was actually taught by Elizabeth Warren. The couple have two children together, a son and a daughter.

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Joseph P. Kennedy III & Lauren Anne Birchfield

Joseph P. Kennedy III & Lauren Anne Birchfield

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Maxine Waters & Sidney Williams

Maxine Waters is the US representative for California’s 43rd congressional district. Her husband is Sid Williams, who was once a professional football player in the NFL and later served as the US ambassador to the Bahamas during the Clinton presidency. He played for the Cleveland Browns, Washington Redskins, Baltimore Colts, and Pittsburgh Steelers.

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Maxine Waters & Sidney Williams

Maxine Waters & Sidney Williams

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Amy Klobuchar & John Bessler

Amy Klobuchar is the senior US senator from Minnesota, and has been in that position since 2007. She married John Bessler, a private practice attorney and professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. The couple have a daughter together.

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Amy Klobuchar & John Bessler

Amy Klobuchar & John Bessler

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Bob & Elizabeth Dole

Bob Dole was the US Senate representative from Kansas from 1969 until 1996 and later the Republican Leader of the Senate. He married Elizabeth Halford in 1972. Elizabeth is an attorney, author, and politician who served as the US Senator for North Carolina from 2003 until 2009. Bob Dole passed away in 2021.

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Liddy And Bob Dole

Liddy And Bob Dole

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Adam & Eve Schiff

Adam Schiff is a lawyer, author, and politician who has been the US representative from California since 2001. He met Eve Sanderson on a tennis court back in 1990, and they tied the knot in 1995. They have two daughters together.

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Adam & Eve Schiff

Adam & Eve Schiff

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Henry & Nancy Kissinger

Henry Kissinger has served as the US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He married Nancy Maginnes in March 1974. She is a philanthropist and socialite and once worked as an aide to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and later as director of international studies at Rockefeller’s Commission on Critical Choices for Americans.

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Henry & Nancy Kissinger

Henry & Nancy Kissinger

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Mike & Janet Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is a Baptist minister and former politician who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 until 2007. He’s also the host of Huckabee, which ran on Fox News Channel from 2008 through 2015 and is now on TBN. He is married to Janet McCain, who he married in 1974. Janet was a Republican nominee for Arkansas Secretary of State in 2002. Their daughter, Sarah, is the first female governor of Arkansas. They have two more children together.

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Mike & Janet Huckabee

Mike & Janet Huckabee

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Tammy Duckworth & Bryan Bowlsbey

Tammy Duckworth is a politician and former Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who has been the US senator from Illinois since 2017. She married Bryan Bowlsbey in 1993, after they met during her participation in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. They also served together at the Illinois Army National Guard. Bowlsbey is a Signal Corps officer and an Iraq War veteran. They are both retired from the military.

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Tammy Duckworth & Bryan Bowlsbey

Tammy Duckworth & Bryan Bowlsbey

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Mitt & Ann Romney

Mitt Romney is a politician, businessman, and lawyer who has served as the US senator from Utah since 2019 and has previously served as the governor of Massachusetts and also was the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2012, though he lost to Barack Obama. He married Ann Davies in 1969. Ann is a philanthropist and author. They have five children together and twenty two grandchildren.

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Mitt & Ann Romney

Mitt & Ann Romney

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Newt Gingrich & Callista Bisek

Newt Gingrich is a politician and author who served as the 50th speaker of the US House of Representatives and previously was the US representative for Georgia’s 6th congressional district. Gingrich was still married to his previous wife Marianne Ginther when he began an affair with Callista Bisek. Four months after his divorce from Ginther, he married Callista, who is a businesswoman, author, documentary film producer, and former US Ambassador to the Holy See. They have been married since 2000 and currently reside in McLean, Virginia.

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Newt Gingrich & Callista Bisek

Newt Gingrich & Callista Bisek

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Kirsten & Jonathan Gillibrand

Kirsten Gillibrand is a politician and lawyer who is serving as the US senator from New York since 2009. She was also a member of the US House of Representatives from 2007 until 2009. She met her husband Jonathan, who is a venture capitalist, on a blind date. Jonathan, who is British, was in the US for an MBA program, and was planning on being in the US for just a year. They married in 2001 and have two sons together.

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Kirsten & Jonathan Gillibrand

Kirsten & Jonathan Gillibrand

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Al Franken & Franni Bryson

Al Franken is a comedian, actor, and politician who served as a US senator from Minnesota from 2009 until 2018. He was a writer and performer on SNL from 1975 until 1980, and then again from 1985 to 1995. He met Franni Bryan while he was at his first year at Harvard. They have two children together and four grandchildren.

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Al Franken & Franni Bryson

Al Franken & Franni Bryson

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Tulsi Gabbard & Abraham Williams

Tulsi Gabbard is a US Army Reserve officer and politician who served as the US representatives for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 until 2021. In 2015, she married Abraham Williams, who is a freelance cinematographer and editor. He is also the son of Tulsi’s Honolulu officer manager.

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Tulsi Gabbard & Abraham Williams

Tulsi Gabbard & Abraham Williams

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Beto O’Rourke & Amy Hoover Sanders

Beto O’Rourke is a politician who served as the US representatives for Texas’ 16th congressional district from 2013 to 2019. He was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, but lost out to Joe Biden. Beto married Amy Hoover Sanders in September 2005. She is the daughter of Louann and Bill Sanders, who is a real estate developer. They have three children together.

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Beto O'Rourke & Amy Hoover Sanders

Beto O’Rourke & Amy Hoover Sanders

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Chuck Schumer & Iris Weinshall

Chuck Schumer is a politician serving as the US senator from New York, and has been in that position since 1999. He married Iris Weinshall in 1980 at the Windows on the World in the World Trade Center. Weinshall is the COO of the New York Public Library. They have two daughters together.

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Chuck Schumer & Iris Weinshall

Chuck Schumer & Iris Weinshall

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Andrew & Evelyn Yang

Andrew Yang is a businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and politician who was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries as well as the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary. He is the co-founder of the Forward party. He is married to Evelyn Yang, and they have two sons together.

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Andrew & Evelyn Yang

Andrew & Evelyn Yang

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Kamala Harris & Doug Emhoff

Kamala Harris is the 49th vice president of the United States and previously served as the attorney general of California from 2011 until 2017 as well as a US senator from California from 2017 to 2021. She met Doug Emhoff on a blind date in 2013. Emhoff was then an entertainment lawyer and later partner-at-large at Venable LLP. They got married in August 2014, and she became stepmother to his two children from a previous marriage.

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Kamala Harris & Doug Emhoff

Kamala Harris & Doug Emhoff

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Bernie & Jane Sanders

Bernie Sanders is the senior US senator from Vermont, a position he’s held since 2007. He is the longest serving independent in US congressional history. In 1988, he married Jane O’Meara who went on to become the president of Burlington College. Bernie has a son from a previous relationship and Jane has three children from a previous marriage, all of whom Bernie considers his own.

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Bernie & Jane Sanders

Bernie & Jane Sanders

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