Republicans hope Love's win is watershed moment for the party Mia Love is embraced by her father, Jean Maxime Bourdeau, in Salt Lake City after winning her seat in Congress. Salt Lake City: She's a newcomer to Washington of Haitian immigrant parents. She's also, the Republican Party hopes, a harbinger of the future. Late on Tuesday night, in a narrow, hard-won victory, 39-year-old Mia Love became the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. On Wednesday, the Salt Lake Tribune bannered the news: "Love Makes History." Mia Love is the first black Republican woman to win election to Congress. GOP strategists hope Mrs Love will help lure African-American and immigrant voters from their traditional ranks - the Democratic Party. Their argument: She's a new-generation voice who's proud to be both a black woman and a fiscal conservative, not to mention a staunch critic of illegal immigration. "Many people said Utah would never elect a black, Republican, LDS [Mormon] woman to Congress," she said in her victory speech. And guess what: We were the first to do it. African-Americans represent just 1 per cent of Utah's population. But Mrs Love is also a no-nonsense, pro-gun, anti-abortion conservative. Because Utah's black population is so small, race wasn't much of a factor in this year's campaign, said Morgan Lyon Cotti, the state program manager of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. "Utah hasn't dealt with a lot of issues that other states that have larger [black] populations have," Dr Lyon Cotti said, adding: "If anything, being in Utah might have made things easier for her." Speaking before the 2012 Republican National Convention, Mrs Love said that when her parents arrived in the US from Haiti, they had "$10 in their pockets." They didn't look to Washington for help, she said, "they looked within." As she is fond of saying: "I'm no victim." She attended the University of Hartford, where she took dance and singing and earned a degree in fine arts; she later worked as a flight attendant. Her sister, Cynthia, joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the family sent Mia out to investigate. She saw problems with the way the faith had treated blacks; until the late 1970s it had banned black men from the priesthood. But she also didn't rule out a future role in the church. Later, she met her future husband, Jason, while he was on a Mormon mission in Connecticut. They now have three children. One scene from their early marriage encapsulates her pluck. The newlyweds discovered they had received three identical toasters as wedding presents. Jason went to return two of them, while Mia waited in the car. He returned to say he was told he needed a receipt. That fired her up. As her campaign manager Dave Hansen tells it, she told her husband: "Don't go in and ask them for what you want; go in and tell them what you expect." She later walked in and got the refund, sans receipt. "That's going to be her approach in Washington," Mr Hansen said. She's going to go there and tell people what she expects.