This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Joe Biden, the former US vice-president, has promised to “listen respectfully” to any allegations that he behaved inappropriately towards women.

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Biden issued a statement on Sunday as a former state lawmaker, who accuses him of kissing her head without consent, said he had displayed a pattern of behaviour that was disqualifying for a presidential candidate.

The former vice-president, who is expected to enter the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, has for years been known to make physical contact with women at political events, sometimes appearing to make them uncomfortable.

Lucy Flores, a former member of the Nevada state assembly, said in an article for The Cut on Friday Biden approached her from behind at a campaign event in November 2014, placed his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair and slowly planted a kiss on the top of her head.

Flores, who at the time was 35 and a candidate for lieutenant governor, described Biden’s actions as “blatantly inappropriate and unnerving”.

In an interview on Sunday, Flores said “it wasn’t the only incident” and that Biden had behaved questionably with other women.

“There has been documentation both in photos and in videos, in stories that were written,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.

“For me its disqualifying,” Flores said.

Biden said in a statement on Sunday he had given “countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort” in his decades on the campaign trail.

“And not once – never – did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention,” Biden said. He conceded that he “may be surprised” by recollections of others involved that differ from his own.

“But we have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences, and men should pay attention. And I will,” Biden said.

Flores noted in her interview that her complaint about Biden had not been about his intentions and said this was a secondary concern.

“It should be about the women on the receiving end of that behaviour,” she said.

The controversy has alarmed Democrats who fear that Biden, who has led several early opinion polls, could be dragged down by decades of political and cultural baggage.

Biden has come under sustained criticism for his handling of the Senate judiciary committee’s confirmation hearings for supreme court justice Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden, then committee chairman, has apologised to Anita Hill, who testified that Thomas sexually harassed her. Biden declined to allow other witnesses with accounts supporting Hill’s to testify.

Other candidates for the 2020 nomination offered support for Flores.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told an interviewer in Iowa on Saturday: “I believe Lucy Flores, and Joe Biden needs to give an answer.” Asked if Biden should abandon plans to run for president, Warren said: “That’s for Joe Biden to decide.”

In an interview on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she had “no reason not to believe” Flores. Klobuchar said Biden had addressed the allegation and “will continue to address it” if he enters the race.

Julián Castro, the former US housing secretary and mayor of San Antonio, Texas, said on Saturday in Iowa: “I believe Lucy Flores.” He added: “We need to live in a nation where people can hear her truth.”

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Asked if the incident should disqualify Biden, Castro said: “He’s going to decide whether he’s going to run or not, and then the American people, if he does, will decide whether they support him or not.”

The organiser of the 2014 rally in Nevada, Henry Munoz, defended Biden in a statement on Saturday, in which he said he and others involved in the event “do not believe that circumstances support allegations that such an event took place”.

But Munoz appeared to base this statement on a contention that Flores and Biden had not been alone at any point during the event. Flores never suggested they had been, telling CNN the actor Eva Longoria was present.

Kellyanne Conway, a White House adviser to Donald Trump, said Biden had a “big problem”. Conway told Fox News Sunday: “He calls it affection and handshakes. His party calls it completely inappropriate.”

Trump has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by more than a dozen women. A recording of Trump boasting that he grabbed women by their genitals was made public in the weeks before his 2016 election victory.