Mia Love, a former mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, handily won on Saturday her bid to become the Republican congressional nominee to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson. She defeated opponent Bob Feuhr with more than 78 percent of the vote.

If successful in November, Love will also make history as the first Black female Republican elected to Congress.

This is her second attempt to represent Utah's 4th District. In 2012, she ran against Matheson but lost by fewer than 800 votes in a district that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney carried that year. In a statement, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Greg Walden expressed confidence that the GOP will pick up the seat and "there is no better candidate to lead the charge than Mia Love."

In Virginia, Marine Corps veteran Micah Edmond, an African-American who converted to Judaism, won the GOP nomination in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. James Moran, a Democrat who has represented the state's 8th District for more than 20 years. Edmond says he's a moderate Republican, but the conventional wisdom is that he will likely lose in the heavily Democratic district, which President Obama overwhelmingly won in 2012.

Follow Joyce Jones on Twitter: @BETpolitichick.

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(Photo: courtesy Love 4 Utah)