But, in interviews with two dozen progressive activists at Netroots, most people told me that, while they prefer Warren, they’d choose Harris if things go south for the Massachusetts lawmaker. They view both senators as passionate and capable. Some even suggested that the two women should run on the same ticket. “They bring different things to the table, but one thing is clear when you talk to each of them: their competency,” Rod Sullivan, a 53-year-old attendee from Iowa City, Iowa, told me. They would operate differently as presidents, he added. But each of them “could do this.”…

This year, you couldn’t swing a cat inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center here without hitting someone wearing a Warren pin or a “Nevertheless, She Persisted” t-shirt. The senator was met with “Warren! Warren!” chants and a standing ovation at the presidential forum on Saturday—a much more enthusiastic reception than saw her 2020 peers in attendance: former housing secretary Julian Castro, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Governor Jay Inslee of Washington. (Harris did not attend the conference, opting instead to speak at a national convention for a black fraternity in Atlantic City, New Jersey). The Warren fandom was similar at last year’s conference, months before she declared her candidacy, when her keynote address brought progressives to their feet again and again. “Warren has a good track record to show she really knows how to get the job done,” Carmen Martinez, 29, from Washington, D.C., told me. “I love how she has a plan for everything.” Every Warren fan I met echoed those sentiments.