Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a top backer of Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, is so far declining to say whether he will stand by his protege after the emergence of new and damaging allegations of sexual assault were leveled against him on Monday.

Sanders’s silence comes as Platner’s support on Capitol Hill and beyond is crumbling in the wake of revelations from a woman who dated Platner but says he sexually assaulted her while drunk five years ago.

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