Barack Obama is beginning to worry that Joe Biden will blow the 2024 election and hand power back to Donald Trump.

Obama "knows this is going to be a close race" and feels that "Democrats could very well lose," the Wall Street Journal reported. 

Obama's big fear...

Obama fears "the alternative is pretty dangerous for democracy," the paper reported.

Biden has hammered Trump as a threat to democracy, even comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler over his recent immigration comments.

Trump says the shoe is on the other foot, and that Biden is trying to salvage his sinking re-election bid by weaponizing the government against his main political opponent.

Although Trump is up in the polls, Biden gains an advantage if Trump is convicted of a crime. Trump is facing four separate, highly partisan political trials, all led by Democrats in league with Biden.

The Washington Post reports that Biden is privately upset about his poll numbers, which have Trump 3.5 points ahead in a RealClearPolitics average.

At a White House huddle, Biden complained that his numbers are "unacceptably low and he wanted to know what his team and his campaign were doing about it."

Voters are souring on Biden as inflation continues to crush consumers, despite Biden's efforts to convince the country that "Bidenomics" is working - and Biden's age is now universally accepted as a liability.

The war in Israel, and the crisis at the border, are also exposing fractures in Biden's left-wing coalition while raising fresh doubts about his leadership.

Biden faces doubts

Biden and Obama have been seen together recently in light of Trump's renewed threats to repeal Obamacare, which they hope to leverage by painting Trump as a threat to affordable health care.

Despite their public show of unity, Biden and Obama have a complicated history defined by jealousy and rejection.

Obama famously rejected Biden's 2016 presidential ambitions in favor of Hillary Clinton, who went on to lose to Trump in a historic upset. In 2020, Obama was hardly more enthusiastic about Biden's campaign, notoriously warning that Biden's capacity to court disaster should not be underestimated.

Aides to Biden say he has been consistently underrated, including by many Democrats.

A close adviser to Obama, David Axelrod, has been one of the loudest voices of doubt on the left concerning Biden's candidacy.

Were Obama's 2024 fears leaked to discourage Biden from running? If so, it may be too late.

If Democrats don't swap Biden out, and conditions do not improve for him, they will have no choice but to double down on banana republic investigations to destroy Trump.

And yet they say they're the ones fighting for "democracy."