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Joe Biden may come under pressure to decide whether he will challenge Hillary Clinton for the White House sooner than anticipated, as liberal anxiety has prompted multiplying grassroots supporters to wonder if the vice-president might be knocked from his perch of studied neutrality and into a presidential bid.

A third-party political action committee urging Biden to challenge Clinton from the left in the smoldering controversy over her email arrangements has ballooned tenfold in the past week alone, the Guardian has learned, even as advisers close to the vice-president insist that he will wait and see about a 2016 run they say he is still seriously considering.

Hints that the Democratic search for alternatives to Clinton may be more heartfelt than previously thought an earnest progressive case for an Al Gore candidacy emerged last week, and the email controversy has created air pockets in Clintons popularity ahead of her expected run has some eyes wandering anew in the direction of the current White House.

Now, with Republican candidates launching formal campaigns and the Clinton machine not far behind, Biden supporters are for the first time displaying organizational structure: a Draft Biden web site last week that has gone from a list of 2,000 supporters to 20,000 backers nationwide, director Will Pierce told the Guardian.

Whats more, Pierce said, they are getting help from old Biden hands.

Since we started this, a lot of people from Bidens past, from when he was a United States senator as well as when he ran for president, have been coming out and supporting it and getting involved, said Pierce, who said he has worked on political campaigns for about 10 years. Weve been feeding from their firehose, just because its been a lot of support.

Biden has said for months that he will wait until summer before deciding whether to jump into what would be a battle against Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president. In January, Biden told ABC News that theres a chance he would run. I dont think you have to make up your mind until the summer, he said. I think this is wide open on both sides.

But from the vice-presidents perspective, the question has not changed, said Ted Kaufman, who was chief of staff for Biden for two decades in the Senate and was appointed to succeed him as senator after Bidens elevation to the vice-presidency.

His situation is the same as he talked about at the end of last year, that he was going to decide this summer, Kaufman told the Guardian on Tuesday. The main criterion is, what would he bring to the race, in terms of the ideas he cares most about.

Nothings really changed, the last four-five months, in terms of his position on running.

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Biden facing pressure to decide on challenge to Hillary Clinton