SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (Reuters) ? Businessman Herman Cain defiantly denied sexual harassment allegations against him on Tuesday and vowed they would not force him to withdraw from the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
"Ain't going to happen," Cain said, referring to the chances of giving up his presidential bid. "We will get through this."
Cain spoke at a news conference to respond to Sharon Bialek, a Chicago woman who went public on Monday with allegations that Cain made a crude sexual advance against her in 1997 when he was head of the National Restaurant Association. She is the fourth woman to accuse him of sexual harassment.
Cain denied ever having seen Bialek until she appeared on television with her lawyer Gloria Allred to lay out allegations that he insisted "simply did not happen."
The 65-year-old former pizza executive is attempting to prevent his campaign from unraveling at a time when he has been leading in many polls of Republican voters considering who to choose as their presidential nominee to face President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll on Tuesday found that 40 percent of Republicans view Cain less unfavorably after watching a video of Bialek's accusations.
Cain shrugged off the results of the poll, saying it is only natural to see a decline when the allegations against him have been covered so intensely by the news media.
As Cain spoke, a woman who accused Cain last week and who had remained unidentified came forward and identified herself to The New York Times. Her name is Karen Kraushaar and she is a spokeswoman at the U.S. Treasury Department.
"When you are being sexually harassed in the workplace, you are extremely vulnerable," she told the Times. "You do whatever you can to quickly get yourself into a job some place safe, and that is what I thought I had achieved when I left."
(Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Will Dunham)
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