(Reuters) – Mia Love, the first Black Republican Congresswoman, has died after a three-year battle with brain cancer, her family wrote on social media. She was 49.
Love died on Sunday surrounded by her family.
“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 today,” the family wrote.
Love was born Ludmya Bourdeau to Haitian immigrants on Dec. 6, 1975 in New York City. After earning a degree in fine arts from the University of Hartford, she converted from Catholicism to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved to Utah.
In college, she met Jason Love. The couple reconnected in Utah, married and had three daughters.
She was elected to the city council in Saratoga Springs, Utah, in 2003 and then was elected mayor in 2009 as a proponent of smaller government during the recession of the late 2000s.
“I wasn’t elected in Saratoga Springs because of my race or my gender or my heels,” she said in 2013, according to her biography on the United States House of Representatives website. “I was elected by the people there because I had a plan and a vision to get us financially stable.”
In 2014, Love was elected to Congress, becoming the first Black Republican Congresswoman and first black lawmaker representing the state of Utah.
She represented the 4th Congressional District in Utah from 2015 to 2019 in Congress, where she served on several committees including the House Financial Services Committee.
After losing in the 2018 midterm elections, Love became a political commentator for CNN and served as an elector for Utah in the 2020 Electoral College.
In 2022, she was diagnosed with a glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox said he was “heartbroken” after learning of her death, calling her a “true friend” in a post on X.
“Her legacy of service inspired all who knew her. We pray for her family and mourn with them,” Cox said.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty, William Maclean)
