It looks like we are seeing the final days of Joe Biden’s bid for a second term in the White House.
In a stunning day - while the eyes of America were focussed on the speech by Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate JD Vance at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, a series of deadly media leaks may have all but killed Mr Biden’s hopes of re-election.
Within hours, via multiple US media outlets, it was revealed that every senior Democrat in Congress who counts - former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries - have each told the president, separately and privately, that he cannot beat Donald Trump and that to stay in the race would risk losing both houses of Congress.
Overnight Mr Biden’s chances of staying in the presidential race took another major hit when it was reported that Barack Obama has told allies that Mr Biden “needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy’’.
Mr Obama, the most influential figure in the Democratic party, is said to believe that the path to victory for his former Vice President has now greatly diminished.
This is surely the death-knell for the 81-year-old president’s hopes of serving a second term. No matter how stubborn Mr Biden is, he now knows the bitter truth that the elders in his own party and - according to a new poll - 65 per cent of Democrat voters - do not want him to run again.
For the president to continue to peddle the fantasy that “average Democrats” still want him to be the candidate is utterly disproved by the polls.
You can be sure that if Mr Biden stays in the race much longer, the likes of Pelosi, Schumer and Jeffries will soon say in public what they have said to him in private.
They will not stay silent when they see Biden heading for a defeat which could also hand both houses of congress to Trump and allow him to implement his MAGA agenda unfettered.
High profile congressman Adam Schiff has also joined the now 24 members of congress who have called on Mr Biden to quit the race. It is highly likely that more influential Democrats will join them in the days ahead. If so, we will see the floodgates open, making it impossible for Biden to remain in the contest.
Disaffected Democrats know that they need to move fast if they are to persuade Biden to end his bid.
They now have less than three weeks to persuade their president to quit, with the Democratic National Committee planning to hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden as their presidential candidate between August 1 to August 7. On top of this, Biden has Covid, so for the next week he will have to watch from a distance as his future is decided.
The extraordinary assassination attempt on Trump and then the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee briefly helped Biden by taking the spotlight off his woes for a few days.
But now things are going downhill rapidly for the president.
A bombshell new AP-NORC poll shows that 65 per cent of Democrats - his own party faithful - believe their president “should withdraw and allow his party to select a different candidate.’ This call to depart becomes deafening among Democrats under 45, with three quarters of them wanting him to quit the race.
This poll will be weaponised by Biden’s Democrat critics, as it should be.
Biden, after first saying that only the “Lord Almighty” could persuade him not to run, has suddenly decided that more earthly powers could make him change his mind.
He now says that he would re-evaluate his position if a doctor told him directly that had a medical condition that made withdrawal necessary. Not long after making those comments, the president tested positive for Covid. Although Covid is unlikely to cause any long term issues for Biden, his recovery will be closely scrutinised as an indication of his vitality. Covid will also take him off the campaign trail for a week just when he is trying to reassure Americans that he is healthy enough to serve another term.
But Biden also says he might quit if his aides told him he could not win. That is exactly what is now happening with senior Democrats.
A slew of polls will be taken in the wake of Trump’s near assassination and the Republican jamboree of the RNC. These events will almost certainly see Biden’s poll numbers slip further against Trump.
Biden insists he will run again, but the obstacles ahead of him are now almost impossible to surmount. His bid to serve a second term appears doomed.
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