When Joe Biden launched his re-election bid with a social media video on Tuesday, the US president left little doubt about who will be by his side as he seeks another four years in the White House.
The three-minute clip, narrated by Biden, is full of images of vice-president Kamala Harris: conferring with the president in the Oval Office; walking down the White House colonnade; hugging first lady Jill Biden; and posing for selfies with voters.
“Let’s finish this job, I know we can,” Biden says, as the video flashes from an image of the smiling president and vice-president to a Biden-Harris campaign logo.
It is exceedingly rare for an incumbent to swap out their vice-president for another running mate. The last time it happened was in 1976 when Republican Gerald Ford ditched Nelson Rockefeller to run on a ticket with Bob Dole and went on to lose to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Yet there have been persistent rumblings that Biden might make a switch, in part because of Harris’s low approval ratings. More than 54 per cent of Americans have an unfavourable opinion of her, according to the Real Clear Politics average.
That might not be a problem but for what most pundits agree is Biden’s most significant political vulnerability: his age. At 80, he is the oldest serving US president. If re-elected, he would be 82 when he is sworn in for a second term and 86 at the end of his tenure. And as vice-president, Harris is first in the line of succession should the president die in office.
People close to the president insist that Biden, who relies on a relatively small, tight-knit group of longtime advisers, never considered replacing Harris. One Democratic operative said doing so would be tantamount to admitting he had made a significant error by picking her in 2020.
“It sort of impugns your own judgment,” they added. “You told us this was the person . . . and now you are telling me that is the wrong person?”
The rumours that Biden was thinking of dropping her as a running mate were amplified in January, when Democratic senator and progressive standard bearer Elizabeth Warren appeared to dodge a question about whether Harris should be on the ticket again.
Warren later clarified her remarks, issuing a full-throated statement of support, but they were an uncomfortable reminder of the rocky path that Harris has charted as Biden’s number two.
The first female, first African-American and first Asian-American vice-president, Harris was heralded as a trailblazer when Biden first named her as his running mate. The US senator and former prosecutor, who previously served as California’s attorney-general, was seen as an asset to the Biden campaign as both a fundraiser and a confident debater against Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s vice-president.
However, her tenure has been tainted not just by her low approval ratings but a series of gaffes that Republicans have been quick to pounce on, including a tendency to laugh at seemingly inappropriate moments.
In one widely panned interview early in her vice-presidency, Harris dismissed questions about why she had not yet visited the US-Mexico border despite being tasked with handling an immigration crisis. She laughed and said: “I haven’t been to Europe.”
Critics and allies alike note that sacking Harris would have sent the wrong message to women and black voters, two pillars of the Democratic support base.
Her supporters insist she is a formidable campaigner who can devote more time to the trail while Biden must juggle the demands of governing. Some wryly note that she has more energy and stamina than the octogenarian president.
Many expect her to play a leading role in spreading the Democrats’ message on protecting abortion rights, an issue that was key to the party’s better than expected performance in last year’s midterm elections and is likely to be central to the political debate in 2024.
“I think the VP is a huge asset as we head into this election cycle and re-election campaign,” said Jess O’Connell, a Democratic strategist and chief executive of Newco Strategies.
O’Connell said Harris was “extremely well positioned” to be an “incredible messenger”, adding: “She’s been in some of the toughest fights that we’ve had around democracy and around abortion rights, and those are ongoing.”
Others say voters will ultimately make their choice based on whether they prefer Biden over whoever wins the Republican nomination.
“It is very hard for the vice-president to help or hurt the candidate in any significant way,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the Democratic think-tank Third Way. “Presidential elections are about the top of the ticket,”
He added: “Harris can be an asset as a campaign spokesperson, as the number-one surrogate, but ultimately this is going to Biden versus Trump, or whoever [Republicans] nominate.”