We’ve spoken before: Mia is the mayor of Saratoga Springs in the new UT-04 district, and if she wins the primary she hopes to beat Jim Matheson in the general.  We spoke for a few minutes at CPAC:

Mia’s site is here.  I don’t often say this, but if I lived in this district I’d be voting for her.  Which is no reflection on the other candidates, of course.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

We’ve spoken before: Mia is the mayor of Saratoga Springs in the new UT-04 district, and if she wins the primary she hopes to beat Jim Matheson in the general.  We spoke for a few minutes at CPAC:

Mia’s site is here.  I don’t often say this, but if I lived in this district I’d be voting for her.  Which is no reflection on the other candidates, of course.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

You may remember her from last week: Mia is the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and is now running for the new district created for Utah as a result of the last census.  We had the opportunity to talk about the details of the district, plus her thoughts about the best way to represent it:

Mia’s  site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

You may remember her from last week: Mia is the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and is now running for the new district created for Utah as a result of the last census.  We had the opportunity to talk about the details of the district, plus her thoughts about the best way to represent it:

Mia’s  site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Cross-posted at Unified Patriots
In November 2011, Mia Love filed to run for Utah’s newly formed 4th Congressional District based on her demonstrated leadership on conservative principles. She credits her parents with providing the foundation for her ideals. After many years of living in the unstable, regime-torn socialist island country of Haiti, her parents immigrated legally to the United States with $10 in their pockets in hopes of achieving the American Dream.

Mia was born in Brooklyn, New York and eventually moved to Connecticut. Mia recalls both parents working hard to earn a living, her father at times taking on second jobs cleaning toilets to pay for school for their three children. On the day of Mia’s college orientation, her father said something to her that would become the ethos for her life:

Mia, your mother and I never took a handout. You will not be a burden to society. You will give back.

Mia graduated from the University of Hartford with a degree in fine arts. She found the Mormon faith. Then she found Jason Love. And then she found herself in Utah. Her political involvement began in 2002, when she heard talk about taking the phrase “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. At that time, Love taught her then 2-year-old daughter to recite the pledge with the reference to deity in it, so she would know it the way her mother had learned it in school. She was elected to the Saratoga Springs City Council in 2003 and has served as its mayor since 2009.

Mia’s leadership and principled decision making during the challenging times her city faced resulted in her election as Mayor in 2009 by an overwhelming majority. One of her first acts as mayor was to reduce the residential property tax. These acts were the basis for Saratoga Springs receiving the highest Standard & Poors municipal rating available to a city of its class, at a time when many cities were being downgraded.

Mayor Love is best known for her conservative positions on limited government, increased citizen liberties and limited restraints on business. She believes the best thing she can do as mayor is stay out of the way of business and out of the lives of citizens. She advocates a return to the personal responsibility and reduced government dependency engendered by her father.

She believes she is the candidate with the best shot to force Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson into retirement. In order to balance the budget while cutting taxes, Love said she would start by abolishing the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, delegating their responsibilities to the states. She would slash regulations and open up federal land to energy drilling.

Love, who became the first black female mayor in the state when she took office in 2009, would become Utah’s first minority to serve in Congress and the only black woman on the Republican side of the aisle. But she does not expect her race to be an issue in her campaign.

Here are a few quotes by Mia on this subject:

I was elected with 60 percent of the votes in this city because people care more about what is happening in their lives, what is happening in their back pockets, what is happening in their homes than they care about the color of someone’s skin.

Love said that, if she is elected, she would gladly join the Congressional Black Caucus.

Yes, yes. I would join the Congressional Black Caucus and try to take that thing apart from the inside out. It’s demagoguery. They sit there and ignite emotions, they ignite racism where there isn’t any. They use their positions to instill fear. ‘Hope and change’ has turned into fear and blame.

I have yet to meet a tea party member who wants to see me “hanging on a tree,” as U.S. Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana recently suggested. He says the tea party considers me a second-class citizen. In truth, as a black conservative woman in Utah, I have been welcomed into the arms of a freedom-loving movement. The tea party reflects the principles of freedom and prosperity black Americans have long fought to win.

The 4th District was created because Utah gained an extra seat as a result of the Census. There is no incumbent, but current Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson will be running in the 4th District. There are three Republicans with whom Mia will be competing for the Republican nomination: long-term State Senator Carl Wimmer, State Senator Stephen Sandstrom, and lawyer Jay Cobb.

The process in Utah is that there will be caucuses with Republican delegates and then a convention in the spring. If no candidate gets 60% of the delegate votes, there will be a primary between the top two.

Mia is pro-life, pro-Tea Party, pro-Israel, and pro-2nd Amendment. Mother, runner, shooter, Mayor, small government conservative who got into politics for the right reasons, unafraid to take on the powers that be all started from the words of her father.

Mia’s website is Love4Utah.com, she’s on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Mia she needs to raise funds pretty quickly to catch up with her competitors, to get her message out to Utah delegates, and to build the infrastructure for a primary race and general election. You can donate here.

I have seen in the past a lot of great black Republican candidates running for a US House seat from New York city, Chicago, and Los Angeles. They could not get enough votes to win. It’s from conservative districts in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and now Utah that we get winners. I am also impressed with children of parents from Cuba and Haiti who understand and appreciate the American Dream more than those who descended from those who were on the Mayflower. I am definitely supporting Mia B. Love.

Mia Love is the current Republican mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah: she kicked off her bid today to be the Republican candidate for Utah’s new Fourth Congressional district. Mia’s running on basic small-government principles, focusing on government being often the problem, and not the solution, to our problems. She’s got a fairly crowded primary to deal with, and will be facing a transplanted Jim Matheson (who got redistricted out of his seat) if she wins the primary, but it’s Utah and Mia’s a pretty straightforward conservative Republican across the board. Public defender of the Tea Party, too, and her campaign is definitely interested in grassroots outreach.

Her kickoff video is after the fold:

Read More →

Mia Love is the current Republican mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah: she kicked off her bid today to be the Republican candidate for Utah’s new Fourth Congressional district. Mia’s running on basic small-government principles, focusing on government being often the problem, and not the solution, to our problems. She’s got a fairly crowded primary to deal with, and will be facing a transplanted Jim Matheson (who got redistricted out of his seat) if she wins the primary, but it’s Utah and Mia’s a pretty straightforward conservative Republican across the board. Public defender of the Tea Party, too, and her campaign is definitely interested in grassroots outreach.

Her kickoff video is after the fold:

Read More →

In Utah, besides the Presidential election, there are two statewide races: Governor and Senate. Given his popularity and the fact that Utah is staunchly conservative and decidedly red, there is little drama in the Governor’s race as incumbent Republican Guy Herbert should win easily. The only chance the Democrats have of winning is if Joseph Smith ran on their ticket. At the present time, there is not even an announced candidate although state senator Karen Morgan has been mentioned as the possible sacrificial lamb.

Regarding the Presidential vote, there is no doubt either that Utah’s six electoral votes will go to the eventual Republican nominee.

For the Senate, incumbent Republican Orrin Hatch faces re-election. However, his biggest challenge comes not from the Democratic Party but from his own party. Heeding the lesson of 2010 and the chain of events that ousted incumbent Republican Robert Bennett, Hatch needs to learn from his mistakes. In 2010, Bennett failed to accurately gauge the strength of the Tea Party movement within the state’s party. They dominated the state convention that decides who goes on the primary ballot. Hence, Hatch needs to highlight and tout his conservative credentials, especially in the fiscal area. He must do this to thwart another Tea Party challenge to his incumbency. Utah Tea Party activist David Kirkhan has been making noises, but has not officially declared his candidacy. It may just be posturing to gain influence at the convention, or he may be nudging Hatch more to the right. Still, the possibility of his entry into the race should not be underestimated.

And Hatch certainly faces headwinds in Utah. First, he must run the gauntlet of a state nominating convention followed by a primary. Second, surveys out of Utah indicate that the popularity of Hatch has taken a hit in his home state. Third, because his biggest potential opposition may be from the Tea Party and because they are above all else fiscally conservative, Hatch’s vote in favor of TARP may prove a little too toxic for Utah Republicans. Fourth, his support of certain judicial nominees since he sits on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee may be a topic of discussion. This is considered the third most conservative state in the Nation and many of his Senate votes over the years may not sit too well with some of the more conservative elements in the party. And finally, with incredibly low Congressional ratings, Hatch may be viewed as part of that problem.

Ironically, another name mentioned as a possible foil within the Party other than Kirkhan has been the still popular ex-Governor-turned-Presidential-aspirant, John Huntsman. However, the longer he hangs in the Presidential sweepstakes (and it does not appear he will drop out before Super Tuesday) the less opportunity he has to consolidate support amongst the Utah GOP. Regardless, some of his views and comments on the campaign trail could be construed as being to the left of Hatch. Another potential name is the highly popular 3rd District Representative Jason Chaffetz. Many polls indicate that he would seriously challenge Hatch for the Republican nomination and possibly defeat him in a primary.

Utah gains a seat in the House this time. After the 2000 census, the GOP dominated legislature created a map designed to make it difficult for Jim Matheson- the only Democrat in the Utah Congressional delegation- who represents the 2nd District. He said before the current maps were released that if the same was done this time, he would have to reconsider his political future. In effect, the new map drew him into the newly created 4th District and so altered the 2nd District that (1) Matheson HAS decided to run in the 4th District and (2) the 2nd District is, in fact, the de facto “new district.” This sets up the very real possibility that 2nd District- currently held by Matheson- will flip to Republican and that Matheson will most likely win the 4th District. Previously, Matheson’s 2nd District had a PVI rating of +15 Republican. The fact that Matheson, a Democrat, could win consistently in such a Republican district attests to Matheson’s popularity in Utah and explains why some drool at the prospect of a Matheson-Hatch match up for the Senate seat. But, the map makers did themselves a favor by allowing Matheson an out into the 4th District. It further sets into the motion the probability that the GOP will add a seat in the House. But most importantly, it took out the only real viable Democratic opposition to Hatch.

And this has had the effect of discouraging the Democratic Party and demoralizing it somewhat in Utah. Obviously, they are aware of the waning popularity of Hatch within his party coupled with a general anti-incumbent atmosphere with some Tea Party reluctance thrown in for good measure. The fact that Matheson has bowed out of that race into the 4th District race is a serious blow to their chances. Make no mistake, it would have been difficult for Matheson to unseat Hatch, but he was their best bet in Utah in 2012. Instead, they now have to look at the very real possibility that reapportionment has added a Republican seat to the House and that a Republican is all but assured retention of the Senate seat. The result is that the Democratic Party must now hope that a perfect storm of anti-incumbency fervor, Tea Party insurgency and emergence of a viable Democrat occurs in order for a best case scenario for them- a best case scenario that would not even guarantee them electoral gains in the House or Senate.

Assuming Chaffetz does not make a later than usual entry into the Senate race against Hatch (polls indicate he would actually unseat Hatch), he is safe for re-election in the 3rd District as is Republican Rob Bishop in the 1st District. Assuming Matheson wins in the 4th, that leaves only an open seat in the 2nd District. That would heavily favor a Republican, most likely Steven Sandstrom. Hence, Republicans pick up a House seat, retain the Governor’s seat and a Senate seat. Even if Chaffetz leaves his 3rd District seat open in a bid for the Senate, Kurt Bradburn is set to assume this seat and keep it in Republican hands.

Thus, our running count thus far is:
Obama 16 electoral votes to 19 for the GOP nominee;
A net gain of two House seats (WA and UT)
A net gain of two Governors (WA and MT)
No change in the Senate

Next stop: Oregon

Next: Oregon