SALT LAKE CITY, Utah–A trailblazing American who at times defied the president and leader of her own party, Utah’s first Black Republican Congresswoman Mia Love passed away in her home Sunday after a three-year battle with brain cancer.
A child of Haitian immigrants, the former City Councilor, mayor and first Republican Black woman elected to U.S. Congress, leaves behind a legacy as one of just a few dozen Black women to serve in the nation’s highest legislative body.
“With grateful hearts filled to overflowing for the profound influence of Mia on our lives, we want you to know that she passed away peacefully,” her family posted on X, formerly Twitter. “We are thankful for the many good wishes, prayers and condolences.”
Despite being a devout Mormon who enjoyed the friendship and support from high-profile Republicans such as Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox, Mia Love at times distanced herself from Trump’s more extreme policies and rhetoric during his first administration.
In 2016, while facing reelection and after the release of tapes in which Trump discussed groping women, Love released a statement saying she would support Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign over Trump’s. Two years later, she once again tried to distance herself from Trump’s immigration agenda while supporting his tax policies. She lost to Democrat Ben McAdams by less than 700 votes.
Her lack of total allegiance to Trump led him to calling her out directly. “Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost,” Trump said. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
Currently, just 31 Black women serve in U.S. Congress, all of them Democrats, according to Pew Research Center.
Mia Love wanted to be “part of the solution”
Born on Dec. 6, 1975, in Brooklyn, Mia Love went on to dedicate her life to serving her community and bridging divides. Her parents had immigrated from Haiti a year earlier; her father Maxime Bourdeau worked a maintenance job while her mother worked as a housekeeper and later a nursing assistant, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
A member of the color guard and starring in musicals at her high school in Connecticut, Love went on to land a role in Smokey Joe’s Cafe as a college student at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School.
Shortly after her graduation, she attended a service of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with her sister, and she was baptized in 1997. She would eventually move to Utah, where she married Jason Love and had three children, Alessa, Abigale and Peyton.
After moving to Saratoga Springs near Utah Lake, she and her neighbors began protesting a developer’s unwillingness to move a pest problem. The brief moment of activism inspired her to run for a vacant spot on city council.
“Suddenly, I realized I could be part of the solution to problems and challenges facing my friends, neighbors and community,” Love wrote in her 2023 book.
She quickly became a rising star in Utah politics, casting a message that accused Democrats of believing the American dream is dead.
“Here’s what I will tell them, not just with my words, but with my life, the lives of my parents. I will show them the American dream is not dead,” Love said at a nomination convention in 2012. She lost that year, but eventually won in 2014 with 50% of the vote.
Distancing from Trump
In 2016, Mia Love won reelection after distancing herself from Trump’s first presidential campaign, in which a release tape from 2005 depicted him bragging about groping women without their permission.
She used her voice to call out her own colleagues after Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “sh*thole counties.”
“I asked the leadership, ‘Are you OK with this? … He clearly sees the people of Haiti as inferior. Do you see me as inferior?’” Love wrote in her autobiography. “If you do not see me as an equal, you can remove me from this conference. If we don’t see everyone as equal under God we have bigger problems.’”
Ultimately, she was unable to overcome her Democratic opponent in the 2018 midterm elections, ending her tenure as the first Black Republican Congresswoman.
Mia Love later became a CNN contributor and in 2024 suggested that despite Trump doing and saying things that are “unfortunate and impossible to defend,” she believed his policies would “benefit’ the American people.
In 2022 she was diagnosed with a malignant form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. Doctors gave her 15 months to live. She survived for three more years.
In the midst of a celebration of her life and an avalanche of happy memories, Mia quietly slipped the bands of mortality and, as her words and vision always did, soared heavenward,” her family stated Sunday.
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