A former Democratic state lawmaker accused former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday of sexually harassing her during a 2014 campaign event while she was running to become Lieutenant Governor of Nevada.

Lucy Flores, a Democratic activist, and former Nevada state representative detailed her account of what happened in an article published Friday in New York Magazine’s “The Fix.”

Ms. Flores said she was “flattered” when she received an offer of support from Mr. Biden’s political team towards the end of her race to occupy the #2 spot in the Governor’s mansion. “His team offered to bring him to a campaign rally in an effort to help boost voter turnout,” she said. While preparing to go on stage at the rally headlined by Mr. Biden, she said that she suddenly “felt two hands” on her shoulders. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?” she remembers thinking at the time of the encounter.

She recalls Mr. Biden beginning to move closer towards her, where she says he preceded to inhale her hair. “Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” she remembered thinking at the time. “My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused.”

Flores said that Mr. Biden, instead of promoting her political candidacy, made her feel “uneasy, gross, and confused.” “The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it,” Ms. Flores remarked.

“Even if his behavior wasn’t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful,” she wrote. “I wasn’t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend; I was there as the most qualified person for the job.”

She said in Friday’s account that she told several close confidants what occurred following the rally. “I did what most women do,” she said, describing her decision to not come forward at the time, citing the fact that the alleged contact did not rise to the standard of sexual assault.

Over time as Mr. Biden publicly appeared to exhibit inappropriate behavior towards women, such as kissing the wife of Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, and as rumors continued to swirl surrounding Mr. Biden entering the 2020 presidential race, Ms. Flores said she felt compelled to share her story.

“I’m not suggesting that Biden broke any laws, but the transgressions that society deems minor (or doesn’t even see as transgressions) often feel considerable to the person on the receiving end,” she wrote. “That imbalance of power and attention is the whole point — and the whole problem.”

Mr. Biden’s office did not return a request from The Jewish Voice for comment concerning the allegations against him.

“Vice President Biden was pleased to support Lucy Flores’s candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada in 2014 and to speak on her behalf at a well-attended public event,” a spokesman for Mr. Biden told The Hill in a statement. “Neither then, nor in the years since, did he or the staff with him at the time have an inkling that Ms. Flores had been at any time uncomfortable, nor do they recall what she describes.”