Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi add to doubts over Joe Biden amid new calls to quit race

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Joe Biden came under mounting pressure from senior Democrats to drop his re-election bid on Thursday, as a second US senator called for him to step aside amid growing panic in the party that he will lose the presidency to Donald Trump and boost Republicans’ chances in congressional races.

Senator Jon Tester from Montana said on Thursday evening that Biden “should not seek re-election to another term”.

“I have worked with President Biden when it has made Montana stronger, and I’ve never been afraid to stand up to him when he is wrong,” Tester said in a statement. “And while I appreciate his commitment to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek re-election to another term.”

Tester, who faces a tough re-election bid, is the second Democratic US senator and the latest senior lawmaker from Biden’s own party to publicly call on him to leave the race. Jim Costa, a Democratic House member from California, also urged Biden to step aside on Thursday, saying the president needed to “pass the torch” to the next generation.

More than 20 members of Congress have now openly urged Biden to suspend his re-election bid, while many more have privately expressed concerns about his electability behind the scenes.

Former president Barack Obama has told allies that Biden’s path to victory had greatly diminished and he should rethink whether he can win, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told Biden that she is pessimistic about his chances, CNN reported.

A spokesperson for Pelosi said the reports misrepresented any conversations she may have had. Obama’s office declined to comment. A person familiar with his thinking said Obama saw himself as a “sounding board and counsellor”, believed Biden had been “an outstanding president”, and was “protective of him both personally and of the Biden administration’s strong and historic accomplishments”.

Tester’s intervention came one day after Adam Schiff, a senior House Democrat and close Pelosi ally, called on the 81-year-old president to “pass the torch”, citing “serious concerns” about whether Biden could defeat Trump in November.

One House Democratic lawmaker said the crisis, which began last month with Biden’s disastrous performance at a debate with Trump, had reached a “breaking point”. “I don’t see how he survives this,” the lawmaker added.

With speculation over his future raging, Biden was isolating with Covid-19 at his Delaware home.

“Our campaign is not working through any scenarios where President Biden is not the top of the ticket,” insisted Biden campaign spokesperson Quentin Fulks. “He is, and will be, the Democratic nominee. He is staying in this race.”

Biden trails Trump in nearly all national and swing state polls, including surveys by Emerson College on Thursday of seven swing states and the US as a whole.

An Associated Press poll published on Wednesday found that nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters wanted the president to step aside.

PredictIt, the online prediction market, showed the chances of Biden being the Democratic nominee had fallen sharply, while the chances of vice-president Kamala Harris being the party’s nominee had risen steeply.

Several influential donors and operatives said they expected Biden to step down. “Ninety per cent he’s out in days,” said a person who had been in touch with multiple Democratic representatives in Congress.

“I’m talking to donors all the time, they’re feeling more emboldened, there is momentum again. [A few days ago] it felt like it was dying down . . . but in the last two days people have been really reinvigorated,” said a donor who has been coordinating efforts to force Biden out.

Two influential Wall Street donors said they believed, but had no clear confirmation, that Biden’s determination to stay in the race was weakening and that news of his illness might provide an excuse to bow out.

Both said that Chuck Schumer, a close ally of Biden and the most senior Democrat in the Senate, had told the president the party risked losing the White House and Senate if he stayed in the race.

“We’ve made it clear to [Schumer] and Jeffries that the money is drying up unless there is a rapid change,” said one of the donors, referring also to Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives.

A spokesperson for Schumer did not respond to a request for comment.