With her election victory in Utah Tuesday, Mia Love has become the first black, Republican woman elected to Congress. (Reuters)
The Republican wave that crashed over American politics last night produced two historic firsts. Mia Love became the first African American Republican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) not only became the first black elected to the Senate from the Palmetto State, but also the first to win statewide office since Reconstruction. Scott joins Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who also won reelection last night, as the only two African Americans in the U.S. Senate.
Love burst onto the national political scene with a fiery speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention. If you saw the speech or were in the hall that night like I was, you knew she was going places. She lost her congressional bid that year. Love prevailed last night.
Rep.-elect Mia Love (R-Utah) came onto the national political scene during her first campaign in 2012, including this speech at the party's convention in Tampa. (2012 Republican National Convention via YouTube)
Scott was a freshman congressman when Gov. Nikki Haley (R) tapped him to replace the retiring Sen. Jim DeMint (R) in December 2012. “He earned this seat for the person that he is,” she said when announcing Scott’s appointment. “He earned this seat for the results he has shown.” Some were quick to dismiss him as window-dressing for a GOP seen hostile to people of color, African Americans in particular. Not Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.). “Tim Scott is a good guy. I like him,” he told me at the time. Saying Scott “certainly is no gadfly,” Clyburn added, “He’s not anything close to [being an] Allen West….[H]e’s serious.”
I look forward to seeing how Scott and Love make their presence felt in Washington and within their party.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @Capehartj
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