Haitian American Ludmya “Mia Love” Bourdeau has secured her seat in history as the first black female Republican elected to Congress.
“Tonight you have made history!” the former Saratoga Springs mayor said to her supporters Tuesday night. Love defeated Democrat Doug Owens in Utah’s 4th House district with a little over 50 percent of the vote. “Many of the naysayers out there said that Utah would never elect a black Republican LDS (Latter Day Saint) woman to Congress. Not only did we do it, we were the first to do it!”
The pro-life and pro-gun supporter made national headlines in 2012 when she ran for a House seat in 2012, where she attempted to unseat Democrat Jim Matheson. To many she seemed an unlikely candidate; a conundrum – Haitian, Mormon and Republican.
“I’m perfectly comfortable in my skin,” Love said in an interview with Newsweek. “My parents always told me, ‘In order for people to see you as an equal, you need to act as an equal and be an equal.’ ” Love, who was born to Haitian immigrants, moved to Connecticut when she was five. Her parents had originally settled in Brooklyn during the 1970s to flee the dictatorship of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier.