Two major fundraisers for President Barack Obama have turned their attention to Vice President Joe Biden in hopes they can encourage him to jump into the 2016 race, and they say it's looking more likely than ever.
Last week, Jon Cooper, a Democrat who raised about $1 million for Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012, signed on to serve as the national finance chairman for the Draft Biden 2016 Super PAC, an organization working to convince Biden to run for the top seat, reported The Wall Street Journal.
After Cooper's success with Obama's campaign, he was courted by both Hillary Clinton and Jim Webb, and had dinner with former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley in Manhattan, according to the Washington Examiner. Cooper turned them all down so he could work on getting Biden into the White House.
Cooper said that he tapped into his database of Obama fundraisers and was able to secure commitments from five other fundraisers for the Draft Biden effort.
"There's a limited circle of those who fundraise for Obama," Cooper told the Examiner. "During the last couple of weeks speculation for Biden has increased. There's a palpable excitement."
One of those fundraisers was Shiva Sarram, who joined the finance team on Wednesday saying she is impressed with Biden's "genuine desire to serve." During Obama's 2008 campaign, Sarram once raised $400,000 in a single luncheon, according to the Examiner.
"When I look at the current field of Democratic candidates, I'm hungry for the energy I felt during the Obama campaign," Sarram told the Examiner. "I also want a candidate who can best carry on the policies and legacy of this administration that we all worked so hard for."
The Draft Biden group has already amassed over 101,000 signatures on a petition asking Biden to enter the race, and has teams in the early states of New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, along with volunteers in every state.
While Biden, 72, has remained noncommittal about running for president, he hasn't ruled it out, and following the death of his eldest son, Beau Biden, on May 30 following a battle with brain cancer, the vice president began showing the clearest signals yet of his intentions to make a go for it, according to The Washington Times.
Both of Biden's sons, Beau and Hunter Biden, had been encouraging him to make a third run for the White House, as HNGN reported.
"People I would describe as being in Biden's inner circle are giving increasingly positive signals that VP Biden will be throwing his hat in the ring," Cooper said. "I would have not agreed to take on this role with Draft Biden unless I thought that Biden would enter the race. Nothing's 100 percent but certainly all signals are pointed in that direction."
Many see Biden, who has been in politics for over forty years, as the only Democrat with a chance of beating front-runner Clinton, though Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been giving Clinton a run for her money as of late, especially in states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
RealClearPolitics' average of polling data for the 2016 Democratic field shows Clinton with 62.8 percent support, Sanders with 14.3 percent and Biden with 13.3 percent.
Biden delivered what sounded like a campaign speech Thursday at Freedom to Marry's event in New York, offering out "praise for advocates, personal reflection, and a call to action," according to Business Insider.
The vice president commended gay rights activists for the recent Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling, and promised to continue to fight for equal protection laws.
"It is an incredible job that you've all done," he said. "This has been a heroic battle. But it's been based on this very simple proposition best expressed to me by my dad as a 17-year-old kid," Biden said, as he recalled he and his father witnessing two men kissing. "I turned and looked at my dad, and I'll never forget what he said. 'Joey, they love each other, it's simple.'"
"There are still 32 states where marriage can be recognized in the morning and you can be fired in the afternoon. I want you to know that this next door will be a hell of a lot easier to open," he added.
