by Joe Biden is said to have accepted the idea that he might have to stand down and let another candidate take his place in order to beat Donald Trump.
US media reports said that Mr Biden’s tone had changed behind closed doors, and that he was now “willing to listen” to those who were making a case for him to end his campaign.
It comes as some of his closest allies at the top of the Democratic Party have begun to turn on him and now believe he cannot beat Donald Trump.
Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi have reportedly told Mr. Biden that he is likely to lose the presidential election, after weeks of concern about his age and health.
The claims include that Mr. Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, visited Mr. Biden on Saturday to argue that he should leave the race and make way for a younger candidate.
Mr. Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, also expressed concern about recent polling that shows Mr. Biden trailing Trump in battleground states and performing worse with voters than Kamala Harris, his vice president.
Ms Pelosi, a party senator and former Speaker of the House, said it looked like the US president would lose to Trump, and that his party could lose control of Congress if he stayed in the race.
A fourth story claimed that Mr. Biden was more open than ever to the idea of standing down, and that he had begun asking his aides how well Ms. Harris would perform if she replaced him.
A source said that although he had initially rejected all the arguments about his candidacy, he was now “willing to listen”. Sources told The New York Times that Mr Biden was now “more open” to hearing pleas for him to step aside.
Another told CNN: “It’s open. It’s not as challenging as it is in public.”
Other reports, including from Politico and ABC News, suggest that Mr Biden’s closest allies have now turned on him, dealing a major blow to his campaign and raising doubts that he can continue to the election of November.
More than 20 sitting Democrats have gone public with concerns about Mr Biden’s age and re-election chances, while donors have suspended contributions to his campaign and celebrity supporters including George Clooney have called on him to drop out of the race. .
Reports on Wednesday suggest that previously supportive figures at the top of the party now agree that Mr Biden’s campaign is unlikely to win him the White House for another four years.
Neither Mr. Biden’s team nor the three Democrats who were nominated directly denied the claims.
Mr. Schumer confirmed that he visited Mr. Biden this weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, before the assassination attempt against Trump.
He said he had a “good meeting” with the president. A spokesman for the senator called the claim that he asked Mr Biden to stand down “idle speculation”, but did not deny it.
Both Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries have said they conveyed the ideas of the Democratic congressmen to Mr. Biden in private meetings. Ms. Pelosi’s team said she had been in California since Friday, and had not spoken to Mr. Biden since then, but declined to comment on whether she had raised concerns about his campaign before that day.
Sources told CNN that Mr. Biden was defensive at the meeting, and that Ms. Pelosi suggested asking the president’s internal pollster to join the call for his input.
Andrew Bates, the deputy White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden would remain in the race but did not address the subject of his conversations with Mr. Schumer or Mr. Jeffries.
He said: “The President told both leaders that he is the party’s nominee, that he plans to win, and he looks forward to working with both of them to deliver his 100-day agenda face to help working families.”
Mr Biden has claimed he will stay in the race, insisting he is the only Democrat to beat Trump in a presidential election.
He admitted he “scattered up” in a disastrous televised debate against Trump on June 27 and doesn’t “speak as smoothly as I used to”, but claims his health concerns are unfounded.
His reluctance to leave the election race has been stuck in the past few days, and he has set out various conditions for his campaign to end.
In an interview on July 7, he said only the “Lord Almighty” could tell him to step down and let Mr. Harris or another Democrat take his place.
Four days later, he said he would back down if his team told him “there’s no way you can win”, and on Wednesday he said a doctor could convince him if he was diagnosed with a serious medical condition.
Hours after that interview aired on Black Entertainment Television, he tested positive for Covid-19 and has since returned to his home in Delaware to self-isolate. In a statement, his doctor Kevin O’Connor said his symptoms were “mild” and he received a dose of Paxlovid, an anti-viral drug for the coronavirus.
Despite claims by his campaign that the polls would improve after last month’s debate, recent surveys have shown that Mr. Biden is rapidly losing support in battleground states that he must win to retake the presidency.
One poll on Tuesday found him trailing Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Separate research found that the former Democratic stronghold of New York could flip to Trump in November.
An average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows Trump overtook Mr. Biden around June 27, and has built a two-percentage-point lead since then ─ the largest margin since early April.
Democrats fear that a poor performance by Mr. Biden would not only cost the party the White House, but could see both branches of Congress go to Republican candidates.
They say that would allow Trump to pass any legislation without opposition, which would make it much easier to enact reforms they oppose after the inauguration in January.
Adam Schiff, a prominent Senate candidate from California, became the latest Democrat to call on Mr. Biden to resign on Wednesday.
“Although the choice to withdraw from the campaign is solely up to President Biden, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” he said.
“In doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to get the best of Donald Trump in the upcoming election.”
Mr. Biden’s supporters in the Democratic National Committee have suggested that his nomination, which is due to take place in late August, go ahead in the face of criticism of his campaign.
Convention leaders are to “propose a framework for how best to move forward” with a virtual process on Friday, but will delay setting the rules for another week.
Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries are said to have asked for the process to be delayed while the party evaluates its options.
One Democrat close to the discussions told The New York Times that both had made comments to Mr. Biden in confidence, but were willing to make their comments public if he would not listen.
