Some thought Vice President Joe Biden's wife opposed him jumping into the 2016 presidential race, but it now appears as if Dr. Jill Biden is fully on board.
"Of course Dr. Biden would be on board if her husband decides to run for president but they haven't made that decision," Jill Biden spokesman James Gleeson said in a statement, reported CNN.
The vice president does seem to be weighing his wife's opinion carefully, recently telling an audience member who had publicly encouraged him to run, "You gotta talk to my wife about that." He added with a smile, "I've got to talk to my wife," according to CBS News.
With the Biden family still mourning the death of their son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the vice president has said he is still considering whether he is emotionally prepared to mount what would be his third presidential campaign and support his family at the same time.
Over the past week, sources say Biden has been meeting with Democratic leaders while traveling around the country, telling them that he does indeed want to run and thinks he has a good chance against current front-runner Hillary Clinton.
He would also face self-described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is running on the promise of a political revolution and has been steadily gaining on Clinton, even beating her in recent polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Even though Biden hasn't officially announced, a RealClearPolitics average of national polling data places him in third place with 20 percent, while Sanders is barely ahead with 23.8 percent and Clinton leads with 43.3 percent.
On Friday, nearly 50 prominent Democratic Party donors penned an open letter pledging their support for Biden, citing his authentic leadership and "spectacular success" with President Obama. One hurdle Biden would face, which the letter addresses, is whether he could raise enough campaign funds to be competitive in the early state nominating races, which start in February, according to CNN.
Biden also knows "that if he has any hopes of winning the nomination, he's better off deciding whether to run by Oct. 1 than waiting until the drop-dead deadline of Nov. 5, the day before the first Democratic primary filing deadline, in Alabama," explains NBC.
A decision within the next three weeks would also allow him to participate in the first Democratic primary debate on Oct. 13 in Las Vegas.
In an interview released Monday, Biden told the Catholic "America" magazine last week that even with these key dates quickly approaching, his family's readiness for a run should not be rushed.
"It's just not there yet and it may not get there in time to make it feasible to be able to run and succeed, because there are certain windows that will close," Biden said. "But if that's it, that's it. It's not like I can rush it."
Biden had set an "end-of-summer" deadline to make a decision, but his advisers conceded that the deadline will not be met.
