Some Democrats on Tuesday said his campaign’s denials were insufficient given the explosiveness of the assault accusation and the uncertainties about events dating back more than two decades.

“I don’t want to minimize what happened to her. I’ve spent too many years doing this work to do that,” said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and a veteran South Carolina Democrat who plans to support Biden. “I think he needs to say something forceful so that we can try to put it behind us.”

She said the past few days have convinced her that there is more credibility to Reade’s claims, and she pointed to other revelations about public officials to warn about being too certain.

“I think people ought to be careful being too declarative about what did or did not happen if they were not there,” she said. “The campaign needs to be careful about being definitive in saying it didn’t happen.”