Mr. Bullock has repeatedly visited Iowa, and appears poised to have the support of the state’s long-serving Democratic attorney general, but has been there less often than some of his rivals, who have been in the race for months. In addition to the structural impediments looming in his path, Mr. Bullock will also confront a challenge of his own making: the revelation that one of his former senior aides had been accused of sexually harassing several women. The aide, Kevin O’Brien, who worked for Mr. Bullock in Montana and in Washington when the governor ran the Democratic Governors Association, was fired from his role with the organization after an inquiry there revealed he had sexually harassed a female colleague. Mr. Bullock knew why Mr. O’Brien was terminated but did not intercede to stop Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York from hiring him just weeks after his dismissal from the governors’ organization. And Mr. O’Brien would eventually be forced to resign from the mayor’s office after two more women accused him of sexual harassment.

Source: New York Times May 14, 2019 09:56 UTC