Kamala Harris has to shake off Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump, but her unpopularity and close links to the administration will make her an easy target for Republicans.

The vice president and now Democratic candidate for president needs Biden to be out of the picture – literally – before her candidacy can take off.

Biden has yet to surface since being diagnosed with Covid and announcing he was ending his candidacy, triggering more speculation about his health. But he refuses to go, like a doddering old uncle who’s outstayed his welcome.

Every time Biden appears in public, it will be just another reminder of his impairments and failures.

It seems unlikely that Biden will be able to serve out the remaining five months of his term, and he will face pressure from Democrats to give the Oval Office keys to Harris, making her the de facto incumbent.

His sudden change of mind to bow out of the race – giving even close aides only a minute advance notice – is a sign that he was forced out by his own party leaders, including Barack Obama.

Despite Biden and most Democrats rallying around Harris, they are now stuck with the unpopular vice president and all her baggage – including a record of complete failure on immigration and inflation. She is moving to quickly lock up enough delegates to secure the nomination.

Harris was losing to Trump by several points in polls conducted before Biden dropped out, and her approval rating is nearly as bad as the president’s.

Harris in fact has a much more liberal record than Biden on issues like health care, where she once endorsed ending private insurance in favor of government backed health care.

She is a San Francisco elitist and cannot connect to average, middle class voters, which is why she desperately needs someone on her ticket who can relate to blue collar voters in the Midwest.

She was completely cut out of the loop on foreign policy, and for months she helped conceal Biden’s frailty from the public.

Democrats now are trying to prop her up but do they really believe she’s the strongest candidate? The fact is she’s not – there are a number of other Democrats who would be better equipped to defeat Trump.

That may be why a few top Democrats, like Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer, are holding back their endorsements of Harris.

It’s certainly alarming to some Democrats that Obama is staying out of the fray for now, and it could mean someone could surface at the Democratic convention to challenge Harris.

But at this point it seems highly unlikely that another Democrat can quickly emerge to take Biden’s freed delegates and amass enough money to be a factor.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had been one of the holdouts to Harris, endorsed her Monday.

More than 700 pledged delegates have told AP or announced that they plan to support Harris at the convention, which is over one-third of the pledged delegates she needs in order to clinch the nomination. Democratic National Committee rules most recently set 1,976 pledged delegates as the benchmark to win the nomination.

Harris has support of enough Democratic delegates to become party’s presidential nominee: survey

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President Joe Biden (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)