Herman Cain, Former Presidential Candidate, Dies From Coronavirus at 74

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain died on Thursday. Cain, who was 74, spent most of July hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus.

The news of the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza death was announced on his website, where according to CNBC, the site’s editor, Dan Calabrese, wrote about Cain’s death.

“We’re heartbroken, and the world is poorer: Herman Cain has gone to be with the Lord,” Calabrese wrote.

“We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight,” Calabrese said. “He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all prayed that the initial meds they gave him would get his breathing back to normal, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was in for a battle.”

Cain was an enthusiastic supporter of President Trump and in 2019, the president considered appointing Cain to the Federal Reserve Board. But that plan was squashed after some of Cain’s past scandals resurfaced and several Republican senators came out against his possible nomination.

Cain attended Trump’s June 20th rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where many in the audience, including Cain, were seen without masks or social distancing.

“I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week,” Calabrese added, “I don’t think there’s any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected. We’ll never know.”

As a presidential candidate, Cain coined a “9-9-9” tax plan and proposed to reform tax laws to eliminate existing taxes, replacing them with a 9 percent across-the-board tax on sales, personal income and corporate income.