How can a black woman be a Republican? An intersectional analysis of identity claims in the 2014 Mia Love campaign

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mia Love made history in 2014 as the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. Given the Republican Party's attempts to reach out to women and minority voters while simultaneously rejecting “identity politics,” I ask: How does Mia Love navigate her Republican candidacy as a black woman? Through an in-depth analysis of Love's 2014 campaign output – including content analyses of her social media feeds, website, online videos, and advertisements – I demonstrate the various ways Love worked at the intersection of her political and social identities to align herself with the raced-gendered cultural norms of her party and district. In doing so, I contribute to recent empirical work on the electoral obstacles for Republican women candidates and deepen our understanding of identity politics on the Right.