Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall not the first to lose loved one in middle of campaign

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall suffered a personal tragedy over the weekend, losing his wife at the worst-possible time — right in the middle of an election campaign.

It likely will be little comfort to Marshall, but he is not alone. Plenty a candidate across the country has had to add arranging the funeral for a loved one to the rigors of a campaign. That includes local positions all the way up to the highest office in the land.

Those candidates have a mixed record when it comes to how they fared on Election Day.

Here is a look at nine other candidates who have dealt with personal tragedy on the campaign trail.

President Benjamin Harrison. The presidential contest of 1892 was expected to be tight. Harrison was finishing up his first term after having knocked off Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland four years earlier, and Cleveland was back for a rematch.

Harrison’s wife, Caroline Harrison, died from tuberculosis on Oct. 25, just 14 days before the election.

Out of respect, Cleveland suspended his campaign, although in those days, it did not mean a whole lot. There was no television or radio to carpet bomb an opponent with negative attack ads. and the candidates, themselves, generally did not do a ton of retail campaigning.

Cleveland went on to win a surprisingly comfortable victory — becoming the first and so far only president to serve non-consecutive terms — and Harrison was left to mourn both a political defeat and the death of his wife.

Joe Biden. The longtime Delaware senator, who was making his second bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, suspended his campaign after the death of mother-in-law Bonny Jean Jacobs, who succumbed to a long illness.

Biden went nowhere in a primary battle dominated by then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But he did get the nod as Obama’s running mate.

It was not the last time that personal tragedy would affect Biden’s political ambitions. The 2015 death of his son, Beau — who had reported for duty in Iraq the same day that Jacobs died — led the vice president to conclude that he was too stricken with grief to make another run at the White House.

Marco Rubio. Long before President Donald Trump dubbed him “Little Marco,” Rubio was a rising star in the Republican Party, driving hard for the U.S. Senate. He had embarrassed the frontrunner, then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, in the GOP primary in 2010. In fact, Crist was so far behind in the polls that he dropped out of the race and announced he would continue as in independent.

But in September, about two months before Election Day, Rubio lost his father. The candidate often had spoken of Mario Rubio in inspirational terms.

“He was by far the most unselfish person I have ever known, always focused on others, and never on his own well being,” Rubio said in a statement at the time. “He was especially determined to provide his children opportunities he himself never had.”

Although the younger Rubio carried a heavy heart that fall, it did not slow down his campaign. He went on to win in a landslide.

Whitney Westerfield. The Republican candidate for a state Senate seat in Kentucky got a bad surprise in 2012 when his father died in a farming accident.

The Democratic incumbent, Joe Pendleton, suspended his campaign and issued a statement saying he was “saddened” by the death and was sending “thoughts and prayers” to his opponent.

Westerfield ended up winning the race with 50.4 percent of the vote.

Tamika Humphreys. The New York City Council candidate suspended her 2013 campaign after the death of her 15-year-old daughter.

According to the New York Daily News, the girl died at her grandmother’s home of an apparent suicide.

The paper reported that the East Harlem candidate had all but dropped out of the race. She ended up finishing fourth out of six candidates in the Democratic primary.

Gary Cobb. The district attorney candidate in Travis County (Texas) in 2015 suffered a terrible blow when his 13-year-old son died.

Kenan Cobb, who had been treated in Houston for sickle cell anemia, died after complications from a bone marrow transplant. Family members described the boy as energetic with a big personality and a big smile.

Cobb went to lose the Democratic primary race to Mary Moore the following March.

Carmen “Nuch” Trutanich. The Los Angeles city attorney, in the midst of a re-election campaign in 2013, suffered the death of his mother. Esther Trutanich, who had been ill for some time, died from complications from pneumonia.

Trutanich suspended his campaign to make funeral arrangements.

Two months later, he lost his re-election bid to Mike Feuer.

Carl Brewer. The former Wichita, Kansas, mayor suspended his campaign for governor in September when his 3-year-old grandson died. Police found Evan Brewer’s body in a concrete structure at the child’s home.

The Wichita Eagle reported that the boy’s mother, Alex Baugh, has testified that her boyfriend killed the boy. She has been jailed on a probation violation.

Brewer later resumed campaigning and will be on the Democratic Party primary ballot in August.

Sylvia Lockaby. The retired postal worker seeking a seat on the Greenville County Council in South Carolina suffered the death of her husband in May.

Charlie Lockaby died from a heart attack about six weeks after his wife filed to run.

Sylvia Lockaby lost the Republican primary on June 12 to Dan Tripp.

@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of “Wicked Mobile.”