Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has died weeks after he was diagnosed with COVID-19, according to an announcement made Thursday on his website. He was 74.
“You’re never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning,” Dan Calabrese, the editor for Cain’s website, wrote Thursday in a statement. “Herman Cain – our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us – has passed away.”
Cain is among the highest-profile public figures in the United States to have died from Covid-19.
A 74-year-old survivor of stage 4 colon cancer, Cain had been a business executive and the board chairman of a branch of Kansas City’s Federal Reserve Bank before moving into Republican politics and eventually becoming a presidential candidate.
Last year, Trump briefly considered picking Cain as his nominee to join the Federal Reserve Board.
Cain remained a vocal supporter of Trump’s after his nomination was withdrawn, and he attended the president’s controversial reelection rally in Oklahoma in June, shortly before being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Cain had been hospitalized in Atlanta on July 1, two days after being told he had tested positive for Covid-19, according to a statement posted to his social media accounts at the time.
He did not require a respirator and was “awake and alert” when he checked in to the hospital, the statement said. “Please join with us in praying for Mr. Cain, and for everyone who has contracted the coronavirus – as well as their families,” it said.
Cain’s social media accounts occasionally provided vague updates on his condition. A message on July 5 said he was “making progress” and that “more encouraging news” was expected to come soon. Two days later, Cain’s Twitter account said “doctors are trying to make sure his oxygen levels are right.”
On July 10, another tweet said Cain himself described his status as “cruise control,” because “the progress is slow but his breathing is getting stronger every day. Make no mistake: He is improving!”
