With time ticking, Democrats at the highest levels, including former president Barack Obama, are making a critical push for US President Joe Biden to reconsider his election bid.

Obama has privately expressed concerns to Democrats about his candidacy, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately warned Biden that Democrats could lose control of the House if he didn’t step away from the 2024 race, according to several people familiar with the sensitive internal matters.

Pelosi also showed Biden polling that she argued showed he likely couldn’t defeat Republican candidate Donald Trump, according to two of the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss such matters.

Obama has not spoken directly to Biden, two other people said.

He has conveyed to allies that Biden should consider the viability of his campaign – but has also made clear that the decision is for Biden.

Biden has insisted he’s not backing down, adamant he’s the candidate who beat Trump before and will do it again.

In an interview with BET taped on Tuesday and aired in full late on Wednesday (local time), Biden said that only a “medical condition” would convince him to leave the presidential election race.

He stumbled while describing Lloyd Austin as US secretary of defence rather than saying his name.

“For example, look at the heat I’m getting because I named a, uh … the – secretary of defence, a black man,” he said when referring to black members of his administration.

Pressed about reports that Biden might be softening to the idea of leaving the race, his deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said on Thursday: “He is not wavering on anything.”

In fact, Biden had become more more committed to staying in the race in recent days, another person familiar with the matter said.

But influential Democrats from the highest levels of the party apparatus, including congressional leadership headed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, are sending signals of concern.

Some Democrats hope Biden will assess the trajectory of the race and his legacy in coming days.

Using mountains of data showing Biden’s standing could wipe out the ranks of Democrats in Congress, frank conversations in public and private and now the President’s own time off the campaign trail due to Covid, many Democrats see an opportunity to encourage a reassessment.

If Democrats are seriously preparing the extraordinary step of replacing Biden and shifting Vice-President Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket, this weekend will be critical to changing his mind, other people familiar with the private conversations said.

One said it was now or never ahead of a planned virtual roll call to nominate the party’s choice in early August, ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Biden, in a radio interview taped just before he tested positive for Covid-19, dismissed the idea it was too late for him to recover politically, telling Univision’s Luis Sandoval it’s still early and many people didn’t focus on the November election until September.

“All the talk about who’s leading and where and how, is kind of, you know – everything so far between Trump and me has been basically even,” he said in an excerpt of the interview released on Thursday.

While the tensions over Biden’s ability to carry on a winning campaign subsided some Democrats – particularly after last weekend’s Trump assassination attempt and as the Republican National Convention continued in Milwaukee – know they have limited time to resolve the turmoil after his faltering debate performance last month.

-with AAP