That the possibility of ticket distribution remains after the primary election in which both sometimes clash in direct and personal terms is another sign of the smooth running of the race.

In November 2019, Warren responded to Biden’s criticism of his plan “Medicare for All” by accusing him of “repeating the points of Republican talks” and advising the former vice president, given his position on this issue, might “walk in the wrong presidential election.” Biden struck back at Medium blunt is extraordinary, calling Warren – though not by name – to take “my path or the highway approach” he described as “demeaning to millions of Democrats who have different views.”

But the episode resonates now only as outliers, rare – and brief – fights give up in contests that see so few of them. Since Warren left in March, he has been full of praise for Biden. “His modesty,” he told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC in an interview after he left the race, “came in almost everything he did.”

Earlier this week, Biden tweeted a video of a couple who worked together to call and thank a small dollar donor – the personal touch used by Massachusetts senators during his own campaign.

“I used to call my contributors,” Biden told supporters in the clip, “but I never had that much until (Warren) supported me.”

Warren, too, has been moved by the efforts of the former vice president – in particular his decision in March to support Warren’s consumer bankruptcy reform plan, which opens new avenues for student debt relief. It was a fight between them for decades, when they were famous for doing it during a trial on Capitol Hill. A source familiar with Warren’s thoughts said it meant so much to him that Biden adopted his bankruptcy plan when he left.

However, Biden’s decision-making process is expected to last for weeks, if not months. And even when he and Warren gathered together on some hot issues, there was still a significant political gap to bridge between strong supporters and progressive icons. Warren is widely regarded as a “team player,” but the extent to which Biden is willing to give up significant power to ideological rivals, and what Warren is willing to give to attack partnerships, remains an open question.

A more personal connection

The question that depends on this spring’s surge in interest in Warren’s prospects more often turns to whether he and Biden have – or are on their way to making – the kind of personal connection he wants to make a mate.

A source familiar with the Biden-Warren relationship acknowledged that the couple did not have to “get along like they were friends,” but said the two believed that the others were in politics “for the right reasons.”

“I think they are very sympathetic,” said the source, who channeled the terms Biden often used when talking about the decision. “Personal relationships are a part of it. But how do you see the world too.”

Biden contacted Warren shortly after the death of his brother, the source said. Speaking to The Atlantic, he described the exchange that ensued as “one person who has lost a loved one who is trying to comfort another person who has just lost his beloved brother.” A source familiar with their discussion said Warren and Biden have now spoken several times since Warren left the race, both before and after his brother died.

Warren is at the end of a similar call.

Murshed Zaheed, former aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and a progressive agent who has been one of Warren’s most outspoken supporters, recalled his phone ringing the morning of his father’s funeral, in March 2018.

“He spoke to me and I can’t say how powerful that is,” Zaheed said. “And then he called me a year later, on the anniversary of my father’s death. So when I read the story about Biden and Warren being connected with sadness – it’s very strong. It’s a bond you can’t explain.”

“I saw that paragraph (in the Atlantic) and it was about me at that time,” he said. “It’s like, ‘OK, not everyone will take it, but that’s not bullshit, that’s what’s important.’ And that creates a different kind of chemistry. “

Biden’s campaign was very secretive about the process, and made a short list of what might be ascertained from public announcements and appearances, which seemed to oscillate among competitors. Asked why he felt an increasing opening for Warren, Sara Nelson, international president of the Aviation Association, pointed to the specific moment chosen by Biden and his team to highlight.

“I see an action that shows it,” said Nelson, an increasingly influential labor leader. “The grill Elizabeth Warren gave Steve Mnuchin (on Tuesday) about the enforcement of the CARES Act … is true what we are talking about. Biden took it and reinforced it with a tweet line.”

Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau built at Warren, who has worked with him and Biden, told CNN that he believes the new economic crisis – and the prospect that the crisis can last for years without significant intervention – lifts Warren’s stock.

He also suggested that, for all the policy differences they fought for during the primary election, Biden and Warren had more in common than many people realized.

“Both of them have tremendous personal tension towards their policies. They really look at policies in terms of, for Biden, in terms of middle class nurture, and the same thing is really for Elizabeth,” Cordray said. “And that is something that none of them has lost in years in the public arena. Many people are moving from their roots, but none of them have ever done it.”

Coronavirus effect

“The crisis has changed many things,” Rep said. Ro Khanna, a former campaign leader for Senator Bernie Sanders who wrote an op-ed last week, made Biden choose Warren as his partner. “That demands a bold structural program. That argument is more difficult to make when we are at 3.5% unemployment.”

Other Warren allies point to his turn as the pre-pandemic Cassandra, whose warning in the summer of 2019 that the economy was a “surprise” from another collapse that was largely ignored. When he offered a series of plans, earlier this year, to deal with the corona virus when its full power was released in the country, it was also largely ignored.

“Elizabeth Warren in January had plans for a coronavirus. Nobody else talked about that,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive political strategist. “He has a plan about a health crisis around the coronavirus and a plan about an economic crisis. Imagine if we really did what he suggested in the plan a few months ago – where are we going now?”

Katz also pointed to the political brand that Warren brought to the contest, one of which helped lift him to the top of the main field for last year, when he took the lead in a poll when Democrats held him as a candidate with a “plan” for everything.

“You don’t have to make that new message,” Katz said. “Warren ran to have a plan and it was something that broke through and people found out about him a year later. It was not abstract.”

Biden and his team said that the decision would ultimately bring to life two main bets: that he could foresee a partnership, at the White House, which could potentially reflect the close relations he shared with President Barack Obama. And that the choice is ready to rise and lead, if necessary, with little or no training at work.

Warren’s ability to move smoothly into the role – and take steps if necessary – is not questioned by most Democrats.

“I do not claim to know who (Biden) will be elected, but as far as I know, I think he should go for someone who has the qualifications needed to serve as vice president,” said Jim Manley, an old aide to Reid. “And I’m not sure that everyone discussed meets the criteria.”

Like for Warren?

“Very much. I mean, she’s a one-woman policy shop!” Said Manley. “He clearly has a policy cut, but perhaps more importantly, he knows how to move the power levers in the regulatory process to get things done.”

Pitted against each other, Warren came out on top again, with 36% calling it their first choice. Harris came in second with 19%. Abrams and Klobuchar placed third and fourth respectively.

Allied Warren formed their case

Progressives, for various reasons, are hesitant to appear too fat in public for Warren.

Sanders has missed the opportunity, publicly and privately, to present his case to the Biden team. His longtime senior advisor, Jeff Weaver, also refused, saying that he took “the same position as Bernie Sanders, namely: that is the decision (Biden) to make for himself.

But Weaver, who recently launched a super PAC to support Biden, echoes the other leading progressive voices with specific praise.

“Senator Warren has a long history of being very focused on personnel as a means of making progressive change,” he told CNN. “And obviously that would be an invaluable skill in government.”

Choosing Warren will also help Biden with his small dollar fundraising, reduce the potential for grumbling by progressives who are skeptical of his commitment to engage their ideas and potentially inspire Warren grassroots support that is large enough to be more active in the campaign.

“Reducing the type of negative media that comes from the ‘Bernie or bust’ type of voters, because he is an exceptional preference from Bernie’s supporters, while also helping to strengthen the acquisition in the suburbs, is an asset,” said Sean McElwee, one of the founders of Data for Progress, think tanks and progressive polls.

But like many other Warren allies, McElwee returns to the competency argument, framing designed to appeal to the entire party division and ideological division of the country – and, if the Democrats win, position them to immediately use their new powers.

“To ensure that we maintain the Council in 2022, (Biden) needs to provide direct and tangible benefits for the working class and the American middle class,” McElwee said. “And that means you have to take a government ship that has been totally destroyed by the Republicans and rebuild it in a way that can truly benefit people.”