US: A Republican senator, until recently considered a future presidential candidate, is struggling to save his seat in November following allegations that he used racial slurs to refer to black people.
Virginia's George Allen has denied that, during his college days, he used the "n-word" to refer to blacks and once stuffed a deer's head through the door of a black family.
"I don't remember ever using that word and it is absolutely false that that was ever part of my vocabulary," Mr Allen said.
Two former teammates on his college football team insist that Mr Allen did use the word and one of them, Dr Ken Shelton, now a radiologist, said he remembers the incident with the deer's head. Dr Shelton said that, after a day's hunting, Mr Allen asked another teammate where black families lived in the area and then stuffed a deer's head into the mailbox of one of the homes.
"George insisted on taking the severed head, and I was a little shocked by that. This was just after the movie The Godfather came out with the severed horse's head in the bed," Dr Shelton told the Associated Press.
Mr Allen was considered a safe bet for re-election before an incident last month when he used the word "macaca" in reference to an Indian-American campaign volunteer for his Democratic rival Jim Webb. A macaca is a genus of monkey, but Mr Allen said later that he had invented the word and did not mean it as a racial slur against the volunteer.
Last week, Mr Allen reacted testily to a reporter's question about his Jewish origins and later acknowledged that his mother and both her parents were Jewish and that his grandfather was a prisoner of the Nazis. Mr Allen explained his initial hesitancy by claiming that his mother first told him about his Jewish ancestry a month ago and swore him to secrecy.
Democratic strategists are considering diverting resources to Virginia's senate election now that Mr Webb appears to have a good chance of winning.
A former US marine who served in Vietnam and was navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, Mr Webb is a prolific author whose books include Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America.