Photo By Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll CallBy LIBBY CATHEY, ABC News
(ATLANTA) — Herman Cain, American businessman and former Republican candidate for president, has died after being hospitalized with COVID-19 for nearly a month, according to a post on his personal website and a source close to the White House to ABC News.
“You’re never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning. But we have no choice but to seek and find God’s strength and comfort to deal with it,” staffer Dan Calabrese wrote in an obituary posted on HermanCain.com Thursday. “Herman Cain — our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us — has passed away.”
“Although he was basically pretty healthy in recent years, he was still in a high-risk group because of his history with cancer,” the post continues. “We knew the time would come when the Lord would call him home, but we really liked having him here with us, and we held out hope he’d have a full recovery.”
Cain, 74, was hospitalized in Atlanta with the coronavirus on July 1, 10 days after he attended President Donald Trump’s indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20. He was photographed there inside the arena without a mask sitting packed in a group of other Trump campaign surrogates.
When Cain’s team confirmed the news of his hospitalization on Twitter, they noted: “There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus.”
A spokesperson for Cain said on Monday that he remained hospitalized and was being treated with oxygen for his lungs.
“The doctors say his other organs and systems are strong,” the spokesperson added at the time.
The former pizza company executive was the frontrunner in the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination for roughly a month with an agenda he called the 9-9-9 plan to simplify the tax code.
Another former Republican candidate for president, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was among the first to express his condolences on social media.
Saddened that Herman Cain—a formidable champion of business, politics and policy—has lost his battle with Covid. St. Peter will soon hear “999!” Keep up the fight, my friend.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) July 30, 2020
A co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, Cain became an outspoken advocate for the Republican party and for Trump in recent years.
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