Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain is refusing to abandon the 2012 presidential race in the face of sexual harassment allegations from four women. On Tuesday, Cain denied the claims of his latest accuser, Sharon Bialek, who said Cain groped her and tried to force her to commit a sexual act in 1997. Cain said he cannot even remember Bialek and called her allegations a ploy by the “Democrat machine.”

Herman Cain: “I tried to remember if I recognized her, and I didn’t. I tried to remember if I remembered that name, and I didn’t. The charges and the accusations, I absolutely reject. They simply didn’t happen. They simply did not happen. The fact is, these anonymous allegations are false, and now the Democrat machine in America has brought forth a troubled woman to make false accusations, statements, many of which exceed common sense, and they certainly exceed the standards of decency in America.”

Bialek was the first of Cain’s alleged victims to publicly identify herself. Also Tuesday, another woman, Karen Kraushaar, confirmed publicly for the first time she had accused Cain of sexual harassment when they both worked for the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.