Rick Santorum

1958 – 20??

Richard John Santorum is an American politician and former CNN political commentator who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007 and finished second to Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries. As a senator he became one of the country's most prominent anti-LGBTQ political voices, comparing same-sex relationships to bestiality in a 2003 interview that led to a sustained public-shaming campaign that linked his surname to a sexual byproduct. He lost his 2006 reelection bid to Bob Casey Jr. by 18 percentage points, the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent senator in Pennsylvania history.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM