Mia Love, the child of Haitian immigrants who went on to become a City Council member, mayor and the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress, died Sunday after a three-year-long battle with brain cancer.
She was 49.
She died “in her home surrounded by family,” her family wrote Sunday on Love’s account on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Gov. Spencer Cox, posting on X, said he was “heartbroken” by news of Love’s death. “From the time we were mayors together I could always count on Mia as a true friend,” Cox wrote. “Her legacy of service inspired all who knew her. We pray for her family and mourn with them.”
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who was close friends with Love for two decades, said her “heart is broken over the loss of my dear friend.”
“Mia Love was a fearless leader, a history-maker and a woman of deep conviction,” Henderson wrote on social media. “Utah — and our nation — are better because of her courageous work and unwavering belief in the American Dream.”
Love’s parents emigrated from Haiti, first, her father, Maxime Bourdeau, in 1974, followed by his wife, Marie, a few months later. Maxime got a maintenance job in New Jersey and the family settled in Brooklyn. Marie worked as a housekeeper and later as a nursing assistant.
On Dec. 6, 1975, they had a third child, Ludmya, and called her Mia for short.
The family relocated to Connecticut, and, in high school, Mia became involved in color guard and drama, landing roles in her first musicals. She later received a half-tuition scholarship at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School. In her senior year, she landed a role in a traveling production of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.”
(Love family) Seventeen-year-old Mia Bourdeau at her graduation from Norwalk High School.
That same year — and shortly after her graduation and getting a job as a flight attendant — she joined her sister in attending a worship service of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was baptized in 1997. As a new convert, Love decided to move to West Jordan for a few months.
[READ: Mia Love remembered as “a fearless leader” by fellow Utah politicos.]
While there, she reconnected with Jason Love — whom she had briefly met when Love was serving his Latter-day Saint mission in New York. They began dating and married a few months later. The couple had three children — Alessa, Abigale and Peyton.
(Love family) A photo of Jason and Mia Love before they married in December 1998.
‘Part of the solution’
The couple moved into a subdivision in Saratoga Springs on the shores of Utah Lake that happened to be plagued by nettlesome flies, called midges. Love and a group of neighbors protested the developer’s unwillingness to address the problem, and that activism led to her deciding to run for a vacancy on the 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, “Qualified: Finding Your Voice, Leading With Character, and Empowering Others.” “It was as though those midges had tapped into something I had felt as a performer on the stage and in the color guard, feelings of being part of something bigger than myself, to be a player on a stage that mattered and could make a difference.”
Still just 28, she won her first bid for elected office, becoming the first Black woman to hold elected office in Utah County, where, at the time, fewer than 1% of the population were Black residents.
In 2009, amid a housing collapse that was wreaking havoc on the budget of the Saratoga Springs bedroom community, the mayor retired and Love won the race to replace him.
(Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mia Love shortly after being elected mayor of Saratoga Springs in 2009.
She had become a rising star in Utah political circles and, with the 2012 congressional election approaching, was recruited to run against Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, a member of one of Utah’s most prominent political dynasties.
The GOP field that year was crowded — one of her opponent’s supporters went as far as casting her off as a “novelty.” But at the nominating convention, Love delivered the first of what would become several powerful, high-profile speeches that would make her a figure on the national Republican stage.
“The message of the Democrats is that the American dream is over. The government is all you have,” she said, segueing into the story of her parents coming to the United States in poverty, seeking a better life for their family. “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.”
Later that year, she landed a significant speaking role at the Republican National Convention.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Love speaks on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, in 2012.
Love won the GOP nomination, but lost a bruising campaign to Matheson by a slim 768-vote margin.
Although she was devastated and took up painting, within weeks her team was plotting a comeback. They began raising money and building a campaign infrastructure for a rematch with Matheson, but just before Christmas 2013, the congressman announced he would not seek reelection. Love, who heard about the announcement when she was buying Gatorade for her kids, was dumbstruck.
Doug Owens, the son of former Congressman Wayne Owens, stepped into the void as Democratic nominee, but Love won the election 50% to 47% to become the first Black Republican woman in Congress.
‘We have bigger problems’
Love joined the Congressional Black Caucus, which she said during the campaign that she would do in order to “take that thing apart from the inside out,” believing it mainly played on racial tensions to help Democrats hold onto the Black vote.
She later acknowledged in her biography that being part of the group helped her build relationships with congressional colleagues like Reps. Marcia Fudge, John Lewis and Elijah Cummings.
In 2016, Love won a rematch with Owens by a dozen points in a race where she actively sought to distance herself from Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. She said she would not vote for Trump after a video was released in which he bragged about groping women, but she did not say for whom she voted.
Barely a year later, Love took umbrage when Trump used a disparaging profanity in reference to Haiti and questioned why the United States would want to allow more immigrants from the island nation.
In her autobiography, Love recounted a showdown in the Republican caucus meeting with another House member who shared Trump’s view of her parents’ homeland.
“I asked the leadership, ‘Are you OK with this? … He clearly sees the people of Haiti as inferior. Do you see me as inferior?’” she wrote. “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.’”
Love said she got a standing ovation from the conference, at which point she told leadership that it was time for the congressman who had parroted Trump’s anti-Haiti views to sit down.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who endorsed Love in her first campaign after Ryan’s wife saw an “I am a Mormon” video Love recorded for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Love will be missed.
“Mia Love’s journey, growing up as the child of Haitian immigrants to serving in Congress, was one of a kind,” Ryan, who served with Love in the U.S. House, said in a statement. “[She] was committed to bettering the world around her and blazed an amazing trail for others to follow. Mia was a great friend & colleague.”
That fall, Love again ran for reelection, this time against then-Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. They fought to a near-standstill, but after a lawsuit filed by Love’s campaign proved unsuccessful in changing the outcome, McAdams prevailed by 694 votes — the second time she was beaten by fewer than 800 votes.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Love at an election night party in Lehi in 2018.
In the wake of her loss, Trump took a swipe at her.
“Mia Love gave me no love and she lost,” Trump said. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
“The president’s behavior towards me made me wonder: What did he have to gain by saying such a thing about a fellow Republican?” Love shot back in her concession speech.
“However,” she continued, “this gave me a clear vision of his world as it is. No real relationships, just convenient transactions. That is an insufficient way to implement sincere service and policy.”
‘The enduring principles of liberty’
After leaving Congress, Love became a contributor on CNN and an occasional host on the popular afternoon talk show “The View.”
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“I am a Black Republican woman who served in the House of Representatives for four years, as well as various other political positions. I’ve created policy and advocated for change for the benefit of the underdogs and underrepresented groups. I have been down in the bottom of that deep hole, where the feelings of uncertainty and being unqualified and underprepared fostered real fear,” she wrote in her biography. “I am far from perfect, and I continue to learn what it means to be qualified and develop the content of my character.”
In 2022, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a malignant form of brain cancer and doctors gave her less than 15 months to live. Last May on CNN, Love said she was part of an immunotherapy clinical trial that had been shrinking the tumor.
(Rick Bowmer | AP) U.S. Rep. Mia Love, left, and her husband, Jason, look on during a get-out-the-vote event for Utah's 4th Congressional District in West Jordan in 2018.
On Facebook, Love said she shared her story because “I want my journey to give others hope. Whether you are facing a cancer diagnosis yourself, or fighting a different battle, there is hope! For me, that hope comes from my faith and my family. Both have been a source of immeasurable strength, peace, love, and support. Every day, I thank God for my life and a family who give that life beauty and meaning.”
On March 1, Love’s daughter, Abigale, posted on Love’s social media that treatment for the cancer was no longer effective and “We have shifted our focus from treatment to enjoying our remaining time with her.”
In the closing days of Utah’s latest legislative session, Love’s family stood in front of the Senate, with Love joining via video, to receive a citation for “extraordinary contributions to public service, her groundbreaking role in American politics and her lasting legacy of leadership, dedication and perseverance.”
State Sen. Heidi Balderree, who has known Love for more than two decades, recalled her friend’s war with the midges and her service as president of the Spanish immersion PTA and teaching hip-hop classes at the local recreation center.
(Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mia Love leads a dance on Election Day in 2009.
“She is a force of nature, unapologetically bold, endlessly passionate and radiating a light that has touched so many,” Balderree, R-Saratoga Springs, said.
Plans for memorial services have not been announced.
In a farewell column in the Deseret News on March 11, Love said her life was extended by “exceptional medical care, science and extraordinary professionals who have become dear friends,” as well as the faith and prayers of friends and supporters.
“In the end,” she wrote, “I hope that my life will have mattered and made a difference for the nation I love and the family and friends I adore. I hope you will see the America I know in the years ahead, that you will hear my words in the whisper of the wind of freedom and feel my presence in the flame of the enduring principles of liberty.”
— — — — —
In 2014, The Salt Lake Tribune published a book, “Mia Love: The Rise, Stumble and Resurgence of the Next GOP Star,” by Tribune reporters Matt Canham, Robert Gehrke and Thomas Burr. Below are excerpts from the book:
• Part 1 • Mia Love’s next challenge: A gridlocked Congress.
• Part 2 • Becoming American: The story of Mia Love’s Haitian parents.
• Part 3 • Mia Love: Searching for stardom; a Latter-day Saint conversion.
• Part 4 • Mia Love discovers love and politics in Utah.
• Part 5 • A GOP star emerges to run for Utah’s new seat in Congress.
• Part 6 • Mia Love in 2012: The invincible candidate defeated by Jim Matheson.
• Part 7 • Mia Love’s never-ending campaign goes for the win.
Note to readers, March 24, 11:25 a.m. • This story has been updated to reflect Mia Love was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2022 and to add additional statements for friends and colleagues.
Follow @RobertGehrke
