"Many of the naysayers out there said that Utah would never elect a black Republican LDS woman to Congress," she said at her victory rally, referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.

"Not only did we do it, we were the first to do it," said the 38-year-old, who was previously mayor of Saratoga Springs, a city 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City.

Born Ludmya Bourdeau in Brooklyn to Haitian-American parents, Love catapulted herself into Washington's political spotlight by winning the Mormon-dominated western US state's Fourth Congressional District.

Love's parents came from Haiti in the mid-1970s, and she recalls in interviews how her father at times took second jobs cleaning toilets to pay for school for their three children.

She graduated from the University of Hartford, Connecticut with a degree in Fine Arts. A Catholic by upbringing, she found the Mormon faith before finding her white Mormon husband Jason Love.

Love is a minority in both her state and church: barely one percent of Utahans are black or African American, while only an estimated three percent of Mormons are. Mormons make up about 60 percent of Utah's population.

- 'Poster child' for GOP diversity -

She is fond of recalling what her father told her on her day of college orientation: "Mia, your mother and I never took a handout. You will not be a burden to society. You will give back," she notes on her own website.

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