GOP officially loses 38th House seat — this time in deep-red Utah

Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) has conceded to Democrat Ben McAdams, giving Democrats their 38th pickup in the House of Representatives.

After weeks of counting ballots from the close election, officials determined that McAdams had won by 694 votes. The victory in deep-red Utah showed just how strong the “blue wave” really was in the 2018 midterm elections.

It also highlighted the GOP’s problems with diversity. While Democrats elected historic numbers of diverse female candidates this year, the number of Republican women in Congress actually decreased.

Love was the first and only black Republican woman in Congress.

What’s more, Trump started mocking Love for losing even before all the votes were counted.

“Mia Love gave me no love and she lost,” Trump said just a day after the midterm election. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”

Love actually voted for the Trump agenda more than 95 percent of the time. But that didn’t stop Trump from mocking her and claiming that she’d been disloyal to him.

In her concession speech, Love called out Trump for this behavior — and called out the GOP as a whole for its failure to reach communities of color.

Love said Trump’s remarks made clear that Trump has “no real relationships, just convenient transactions.”

And her own Republican Party, Love said, has failed to “take minority communities into their home and citizens into their homes and into their hearts.”

In the lead-up to the Nov. 6 midterm election, Trump promoted racist fear-mongering about immigration in hopes of boosting turnout among his xenophobic base, telling wild lies about a group of asylum-seeking immigrants on a desperate journey to seek refuge in the United States.

His racist efforts failed.

McAdams said his first priority in Congress is to fight for Dreamers, the immigrants who were brought to the United States as young children and now live in legal limbo.

Trump and Republicans turned their backs on this hard-working community — but McAdams and the new Democratic majority in the House have vowed to work towards a compassionate and positive resolution.

While Republicans like Love and Trump point fingers at each other, Democrats will focus on making America a stronger and more compassionate country.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.