Joe Biden?s 2020 Plan is Almost Complete. Democrats Are Impatient.

A pillar of organized labor, the International Association of Fire Fighters, is prepared to support him in the Democratic primary.And in recent weeks, Mr. Biden’s strategist, Steve Ricchetti, has called a handful of would-be candidates and their aides to signal that the former vice president is likely to enter the race and of late has been telling Democrats that he’s 95 percent committed to running, according to officials directly familiar with the discussions.Yet while Mr. Biden is plainly further along in preparing for a White House bid than he was four years ago, when he grudgingly deferred to Hillary Clinton after months of consideration in the aftermath of his son Beau’s death, there is still one crucial element that’s outstanding: full and final consent from the former vice president himself.This juxtaposition — an eager cadre of supporters laying the groundwork for a campaign they assure is all but certain while the would-be candidate publicly vacillates — has effectively kept the nascent Democratic race on hold.Mr. Biden’s decision looms as perhaps the most significant unanswered question of the 2020 contest and his entry could bring shape to what has been a diffuse Democratic primary, providing voters with a clear front-runner.As a candidate, Mr. Biden would present Democrats with a clear alternative to the hard-charging liberals who now dominate the race and test the appeal of his old-school political profile at a moment the party is hungry for fresh faces but even hungrier to win.“I absolutely believe he’s going to run,” said Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who talked to Mr. Biden on the phone earlier this week. Though aides say he will never back away from his belief in bipartisanship, Mr. Biden’s insistence on telling a story that centers on his relationship with former Senator Jesse Helms – a North Carolina Republican who never apologized for his bigotry – grates on even members of his own team, who have told him as much.Most of all, Democrats — even those who are more ideologically aligned with Mr. Biden — harbor severe doubts that the party should put forward a nominee who would turn 78 shortly after Election Day 2020.“The only major organization in the world that has been, and is, run by 80-year-olds is the Roman Catholic Church,” noted James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist.There are also practical elements of setting up a campaign that Mr. Biden cannot afford to put off too much longer, including ramping up his light footprint on social media and raising money for some of the big-state primaries that come early next year.Advisers to Mr. Biden have begun extending tentative job offers to several sought-after operatives, asking them to commit to a campaign if Mr. Biden runs.