Karen Kraushaar, one of the two women who settled sexual harassment claims against Herman Cain, spoke to the New York Times for the first time about her allegations.

Kraushaar said that she “was upset that her name had leaked into some press reports. But she said that she had decided to speak out now that her identity was publicly known.”

Said Kraushaar: “When you are being sexually harassed in the workplace, you are extremely vulnerable. You do whatever you can to quickly get yourself into a job some place safe, and that is what I thought I had achieved when I left.”

She added she had been warming “to the idea of a joint press conference
where all of the women would be together with our attorneys and all of
this evidence would be considered together.”

“I don’t even know who this lady is.”

— Herman Cain, in an interview with ABC News, denying he even remembers Sharon Bialek, the woman who accused him yesterday of sexual harassment.

A new Gallup survey finds Herman Cain’s image among Republicans is starting to get worse amid claims that he sexually harassed several women in the 1990s.

Cain’s latest “Positive Intensity Score” — which is based on two weeks of polling — is currently 25, but it ranged from 29 just after the news broke to 20 in the days since.

Joshua Spivak points out that in an otherwise less-than-memorable Election Day, there will be at least 26 recall elections across the country today, including two big state legislative recalls — the first time in history that two states will have a state-level recalls on the same day.

It’s not clear if the recalls today is a record — because no one has kept statistics — but it does point to the growing use of the recall.

The 2012 presidential election is less than a year away, but voters across the country head to the polls today to decide thousands of local races.

First Read is watching five contests: 1) the referendum on the anti-collective-bargaining law in Ohio, where polls close at 7:30 pm ET; 2) the governor’s race in Kentucky, where all polls close at 7:00 pm ET; 3) the governor’s race in Mississippi, where polls close at 8:00 pm ET; 4) the “personhood”/abortion amendment in Mississippi; and 5) the battle of control for the state Senate in Virginia, where polls close at 7:00 pm ET.

David Nir provides a handy “pocket guide” to today’s elections.

Heidi Heitkamp (D) will run for U.S. Senate in North Dakota for the seat being vacated next year by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), The Hill reports.

Democrats instantly called the race “the new toss-up” while releasing a poll showing that Heitkamp’s likely rival Rick Berg (R) leads a generic
Democrat by just four points, 44% to 40%.

CNN: “Democrats were quick to tout Heitkamp’s independent streak in the state that went for Sen. John McCain in 2008 and former President George W. Bush in 2004. While no Democrat has won the state in a presidential election since 1964, the party controlled the state’s entire congressional delegation until last year.”

First Read: “If Obama is sitting pretty with his African-American base, the same can’t be said with the middle of the country. In our poll, 56% of independents, 57% of suburban residents, and 52% of folks from the Midwest disapprove of the president’s job. And in a hypothetical match-up against Romney, independents and suburban residents swing for Romney, while folks from the Midwest are split between Obama and Romney. So if Obama’s base could explain why he wins re-election, his struggles with the middle of the country could explain why he loses in 2012.”

The ABC News Frustration Index — based on presidential approval, ratings of the economy, dissatisfaction with the government — is now at 72 on its scale of 0 to 100, one of its highest readings on record.

The index “correlates closely with election outcomes, including the rate at which incumbents
are re-elected and the loss or gain of House seats by the incumbent
president’s party.”