Former U.S. congresswoman Mia Love, a political trailblazer who became the first Black Republican woman in Congress, died on Sunday at the age of 49.

Mrs. Love’s family announced her death in a statement on social media but did not cite a cause.

“With grateful hearts filled to overflowing for the profound influence of Mia on our lives, we want you to know that she passed away peacefully. She was in her home surrounded by family,” her family said.

Mrs. Love had been battling glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, and her daughter said earlier this month on social media that Love’s cancer was progressing and no longer responding to treatment.

Mrs. Love was elected to represent Utah’s 4th Congressional District in 2014, and served from 2015 to 2019. The New York-born daughter of Haitian immigrants, Mrs. Love’s victory in a conservative, majority-White state — following a well-received speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention — was hailed as a watershed moment for the GOP and a chance for the party to gain ground with voters of color.

In 2016, Mrs. Love did not endorse Donald Trump for president. When she narrowly lost her seat in 2018 to Democrat Ben McAdams, Trump quipped that “she gave me no love, and she lost.” Mrs. Love later said Trump’s comments “gave me a clear vision of his world as it is: No real relationships, just convenient transactions.”

In 2018, Mrs. Love wrote in The Washington Post that the Republican Party had to work harder to connect with women and racial minorities, and said the GOP “must invite, not just tolerate, diverse perspectives to the table and ensure that their voices matter.”

Speaking about her own experience as the daughter of Haitian immigrants who escaped to the United States in the 1970s for a better life, Mrs. Love wrote that she “never understood why I had to fight so hard to make my perspective heard on immigration” while in Congress, and said she had “often been the target of insults from those who struggle to reconcile what they thought I should be with who I actually am.”

In 2022, Mrs. Love told CNN’s Jake Tapper that she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma and was receiving immunotherapy treatment as part of a clinical trial at Duke University.

She told Tapper she was leaning on science and her faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and advised anyone struggling with a major challenge not to “underestimate the power of a positive attitude.”