We were the first website to pick up on the star potential of Ludmya “Mia” B. Love.I remember calling her on her cell phone in early January 2012, before she received any national attention and before anyone thought she had a chance of winning the Republican nomination in Utah’s 4th congressional district.I later explained:
I remember calling her when her campaign was in its infancy, and she actually picked up her cell phone and gave me an interview as she was in the car driving to an event. She seemed so happy that someone, anyone, was calling with interest in her candidacy.Back then, when I Googled her name for background, there were so few mentions of her that most of the search results went to — well, you can imagine with a name like “Mia B. Love” that some of the search hits were not about her and NSFW.
I wrote about her candidacy, Mia B. Love – A conservative political star rises in … Utah:
If you haven’t heard of Ludmya “Mia” B. Love before, you will be hearing a lot more about her. Mia has the potential to be the next big thing in conservative politics. And you heard about her here first!Mia is the American-born daughter of Haitian immigrants, mother of three children, served on the PTA, city council and now is Mayor of Sarotoga Springs, Utah. She is an avid runner and shooter, and I’m sure the readers will love this tidbit:
She has a concealed carry permit and often packs a gun. Her husband introduced her to shooting on their first date. His first gift to her was a rifle.
… I reached out to Mia recently and she was kind enough to call me. We had a great discussion. Mia is pro-life, pro-Tea Party, pro-Israel, and pro-2nd Amendment. (In case you were wondering, the rifle her husband gave her as a first gift was a Marlin .22 caliber with a stainless steel barrel and scope, and she packs a Glock 26 9 mm.)
That post spread pretty far and wide, and helped introduce her to the then vibrant conservative blogosphere and media.
This was her first campaign ad:
Love had a very positive message:
She unexpectedly won the Republican nomination, and was part of our Operation Counterwight. But Love lost in the general election by a few hundred votes to the longtime incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson.
Nonetheless, her star power rose.
She set up a rematch for 2014, but Matheson retired, and Love won. She won again in 2016, but is facing a tough reelection.
The polling consistently has showed the race tied in recent weeks, though a just released poll shows her down by 6 points. It may be an outlier given all the other polling, or things have moved against her quickly.
Money is flowing into the race on both sides:
Just a week before the midterm elections on Nov. 6, one of the largest Tea Party-aligned groups in the country is throwing money into Utah’s 4th District race to help incumbent GOP Rep. Mia Love.FreedomWorks, the Washington, D.C.-based conservative group that helped fund the Tea Party wave of the early 2010s, will spend some of the $270,000 it has pledged to 21 races over the last week of the 2018 cycle on Love’s re-election effort, including a last-minute peer-to-peer texting blitz.Not to be outdone, national Democrats are dropping an additional $250,000 for television advertisements on the race, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee confirmed to KSL.com in Utah.
We were there at the start of Mia Love’s political career. Hopefully this will not be the end of it.
[Featured Image: Mia Love at 2017 March for Life]
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