Mia Love, the first Black woman from the Republican Party in the United States to serve in the House of Representatives, died at the age of 49. On the 24th (local time), The Washington Post (WP) reported that "Love, the first Black Republican woman to enter the U.S. Congress and who served two terms in Utah, died on the 23rd."
Love was born in 1975 in Brooklyn, New York, as the youngest of three children of Haitian immigrant parents. Her parents, who fled the dictatorship of François Duvalier in Haiti, settled in Norwalk, Connecticut. Her mother worked as a nurse, and her father worked as a janitor and factory laborer.
Love, who majored in art at Hartfort University in Connecticut, worked as a flight attendant for Continental Airlines and a call center representative before settling in Utah in 1998 after marrying missionary Jason Love. The couple is known to have three daughters. She converted from Catholicism to Mormonism, following her sister’s lead.
Love entered politics by being elected as a council member in Saratoga Springs in 2003. After the 2008 financial crisis, she gained recognition for managing her district's budget responsibly and advocating for a small government, and was elected mayor in 2009. In 2012, she ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican but lost to the Democratic incumbent Jim Matheson by 0.31 percentage points.
According to the U.S. House website, she stated in her 2013 autobiography regarding her election as mayor, "I was not elected in Saratoga Springs because of my race, gender, or high heels, but because I had a plan and a vision for our community to move forward financially, which garnered the votes of the local people."
In 2014, Love ran again for a House seat and was elected with 78% of the vote. She was the first Black Republican woman and the first Black representative from Utah. Considering that 89.2% of Utah's population was White based on the 2010 census, Love's election was remarkable. She solidified her position by successfully winning re-election in 2016.
In 2016, when Donald Trump, who had been embroiled in scandal, was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, she made headlines by publicly announcing that she would not vote for Trump. In 2017, after Trump ended temporary protected status for Haitians who had fled natural disasters and used derogatory language towards immigrants from African countries, she demanded, "Apologize to the American people and the countries that have been indiscriminately maligned."
Love lost her bid for a third term in 2018, falling victim by 700 votes to Democrat Ben McAdams. After the election results, Trump criticized, "Mia Love didn't give me love, and that’s why she lost the election," to which she responded, "Trump's comments clearly show the world as he sees it. There is no true relationship, only convenient transactions."
After leaving the House, Love worked as a political commentator for CNN and served as an elector for Utah in the 2020 election. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor, in 2022 and began her battle with the illness. In honoring Love, who passed away after three years of fighting, her family expressed, "We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the profound impact Mia had on our lives." Utah Governor Spencer Cox remarked, "Love was a true friend, and her legacy of service inspired all."