National
Cain drops out of presidential race
Gay groups on right and left say candidate had to go
Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Faced with accusations of an extramarital affair and a past of sexual misconduct, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain announced Saturday he is suspending his campaign for the White House as LGBT groups on the right and left say he needed to move aside.
The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO made the announcement at his Atlanta campaign headquarters amid media reports that was reassessing whether to stay in the race.
“As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul-searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign,” Cain said. “I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family.”
Cain said becoming president for him was “Plan A,” and under “Plan B,” he will continue to be “a voice for the people” and articulate policy ideas on his new website, TheCainSolutions.com.
According to Slate political correspondent John Dickerson, by suspending his presidential bid as opposed to ending it, Cain is eligible for federal matching funds for his campaign.
The pizza magnate exited the race after Ginger White, an Atlanta businesswoman, announced in a TV interview this week that she had engaged in a 13-year affair with Cain. In October, Politico reported that at least two women had accused him of sexual misconduct while head of the National Restaurant Association in 1990s. Cain has denied any wrongdoing.
For a time in October, Cain had enjoyed front-runner status in the GOP presidential race, but he fell to the bottom of the pack after the initial reporting of allegations of sexual misconduct. Now former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has claimed the title of front-runner, although former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney remains the best funded Republican in the race.
Cain was best known in this campaign for what he called his “9-9-9” plan for tax reform, which would replace the current tax code with a 9 percent personal income tax, a 9 percent business transactions tax, and a 9 percent federal sales tax.
Gay Republican groups had praised Cain’s ability to initiate discussion on tax reform with his plan, but shared the sentiment that the time was now for him to move aside.
Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, said he was sorry to see Cain leave because of his emphasis on economic issues.
“Herman Cain’s laser focus on jobs, the economy, the size of government, and all the issues most important to all of us was good for the debate,” LaSalvia said. “I’m sorry to see him out of the race, but it was clear that his campaign could not go on.”
Christian Berle, deputy executive director for National Log Cabin Republicans, said Cain’s decision to leave the race enables Republicans to find the best candidate to beat President Obama.
“Herman Cain’s decision to step aside allows the primary process to move forward and enables the Republican field to continue its focus on the issues voters care about — jobs and the economy,” Berle said. “A Republican in the White House is going to get our economy and our nation moving in the right direction.”
On LGBT issues, Cain was initially distinct among other Republican candidates because he declined to support a Federal Marriage Amendment that would ban same-sex marriage throughout the country and said the matter should be left to the states.
Also, unlike Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) or former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Cain said he has no problem with open gays in the military and wouldn’t seek to reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
But Cain apparently later shifted his position on the Federal Marriage Amendment when he said marriage “should be protected at the federal level also” and he would back legislation defining it as one man, one woman.
In a January radio interview, Cain also said he’d veto the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The candidate also came under fire in October for saying that he believes homosexuality is a choice and science hasn’t proven otherwise.
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said Cain’s exit from the race is appropriate from someone who chose to side with anti-gay forces.
“It never ceases to surprise me how those who throw LGBT people under the bus are often the ones run over by the same bus,” Sainz said. “Often confused on his own positions, Cain eventually chose to side with anti-LGBT forces. The fact his run ends because of his own moral failings is ironic but unfortunately altogether too common among this field of Republican presidential candidates.”
Jerame Davis, interim executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said Cain demonstrated over the course of his campaign he “just doesn’t have the policy chops” to lead the country.
“Now, with these revelations about his past that make Newt Gingrich look like a model husband, he has little choice but to switch to ‘Plan B,'” Davis said. “It’s too bad ‘Plan B’ is just a rehash of ‘Plan A’ without the presidential aspirations.”
One lingering question is where Cain’s support in the Republican presidential race will go now that he’s made an exit — or if the former candidate will endorse another Republican in the race.
Dan Pinello, a gay political science professor at the City University of New York, said Cain’s exit will have “minimal effect on the presidential election” because he didn’t have the strength in the polls he once enjoyed.
According to a poll published Thursday by Rasmussen Reports, Cain had support from just 8 percent of likely voters in the Republican primary.
Still, Pinello predicted that what little support Cain had would shift to Gingrich as social conservatives continue to push against handing Romney the Republican banner in 2012.
“As a result, the Gingrich-Romney match-up will be more competitive than it would have been had Cain remained in the game,” Pinello said. “Thus, what so far has been a Republican free-for-all will quickly transform into a two-person slugfest for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.”
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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