WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole’s funeral at Washington Nationwide Cathedral on Friday was anticipated to attract President Joe Biden and senior members of each events.

His physique laid in state within the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol starting on Thursday, a tribute just like these afforded U.S. presidents upon their deaths. A whole lot of individuals had been submitting into the cathedral on Friday.

Dole died on Sunday evening at age 98, after a lung most cancers analysis earlier this 12 months.

Dole represented his residence state of Kansas for a mixed 36 years within the Home of Representatives and Senate, together with stints as Republican Senate Majority Chief and chair of the Republican Nationwide Committee.

Dole was awarded two Purple Hearts from the U.S. army throughout World Struggle Two for wounds suffered in fight.

He sought the presidency thrice and was his get together’s nominee in 1996, when he misplaced to Democratic President Invoice Clinton. He was additionally President Gerald Ford’s operating mate within the 1976 election gained by Democrat Jimmy Carter.

“All through his life, Senator Dole exemplified the best virtues we as a nation can ask of our public servants: heroism within the face of hazard, the braveness of his convictions, and the willingness to do what is correct, even when it isn’t simple,” the Very Reverend Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington Nationwide Cathedral, stated in a press release forward of the funeral.

Dole is survived by his spouse, former Senator Elizabeth Dole, and their daughter, Robin.

Dole, identified for referring to himself within the third individual, made a traditional American journey from the poverty of the Nice Despair of the Nineteen Thirties, via World Struggle Two battlefields to the corridors of energy with a stoic Midwestern dignity.

Dole, who described himself as “a Trumper” in assist of former President Donald Trump, in July voiced impatience with Trump’s ongoing allegation that the 2020 election had been stolen from him due to large voter fraud — a declare that has been rejected by a number of court docket challenges and Trump’s personal Justice Division.