WASHINGTON – US Vice-President Kamala Harris’ campaign has backed away from US President Joe Biden in the final days of the 2024 election, viewing the unpopular incumbent as a liability in her quest to succeed him, according to several officials from the White House and Ms Harris’ campaign familiar with the planning.

       Officials on Ms Harris’ campaign think that holding joint events with Mr Biden would “only hurt her” at the most crucial stage of the race, as one adviser put it.

       Mr Biden, who has expressed an interest in helping stump for her in the coming days, is left to arrange his own campaign-approved events through trade groups and unions.

       By all accounts, the US Vice-President has been unflinchingly loyal to the 81-year-old US President whose campaign she took over three months ago.

       She has declined to put much space between her policies and his, and has been careful to show deference, even in moments where she could have broken away.

       “Vice-President Harris is grateful for President Biden’s support and appreciates that he is campaigning for her,” said Mr Ian Sams, a campaign spokesman.

       But personal loyalty is now just one dimension of their complex relationship.

       In recent weeks, Ms Harris has quietly added some new questions to her daily round of calls to outside allies and advisers, a regular routine she has kept up for much of her career to make sure she is taking the pulse of what is happening outside her immediate bubble.

       She has gingerly peppered people who are close to Mr Biden with questions about the US President’s mindset, and his emotional and physical health as the election day draws nearer. “How do you think he’s doing?” she would ask, according to two people briefed on those calls.

       Over the weekend, the difference between the US Vice-President’s campaign schedule and the US President’s could not have been starker.

       Ms Harris appeared with pop star Beyonce at a rally on Oct 25 in Texas with tens of thousands of people, and then joined political star Michelle Obama on Oct 26 at an event in Michigan.

       On Oct 26, Mr Biden travelled to Pittsburgh to participate in a get-out-the-vote event with the Labourers’ International Union of North America, speaking to members in a union hall with barely 100 supporters.

       His team is also hoping to get him out onto the trail in support of Democratic Senate candidates in Maryland and Delaware, according to people familiar with his planning.

       “I’ve done a lot of surrogacy, but the fact of the matter is I’ve always had to be president at the same time,” Mr Biden told reporters in Delaware on Oct 28.

       A close ally of Mr Biden’s, who insisted on anonymity to preserve relationships, said the US President understood that the campaign wanted “Beyonce, not Biden”.

       Another ally of Mr Biden’s said it was simply more complicated to schedule events for a sitting president than for other surrogates.

       Mr Biden still believes that he could have beaten former US president Donald Trump, Ms Harris’ Republican rival, but is not saying it as often in his private conversations, according to the two allies.

       When he is briefed on polling numbers, Mr Biden expresses a mix of frustration, disbelief and anger that the race is so close.

       He believes, as he did in 2022, that Democrats will have a better-than-expected showing on the election day, but the polls reflecting a dead-heat race are part of the reason he wants to hit the trail to help Ms Harris.

       Mr Biden also understands that the surest way his legacy will thrive is if Ms Harris wins.

       If she loses to Trump, a friend said, “it will kill him”.

       Mr Biden and his advisers believe that he has a place in the campaign and that he can still appeal to middle-class white voters and help drive home a character contrast between Ms Harris and Trump.

       White House officials note that the US President has done more to help Ms Harris under the radar than is easily evident.

       Last week, he recorded video appeals to the campaign’s donors. E-mails and text fund-raising appeals by Mr Biden are set to be delivered next week.

       On two days last week, he delivered remarks to organisers from 173 union locals in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

       Mr Biden’s official non-campaign events can also serve to help Ms Harris.

       On Oct 25, he apologised to Native Americans in Arizona for the abuse of Indigenous children in boarding schools from the early 1800s to the late 1960s, delivering a popular message to key voters in a battleground state.

       But Ms Harris campaign officials are holding him at arm’s length, in large part because the US Vice-President is trying to present herself as a change candidate and cannot do that easily next to Mr Biden.

       There is also wariness about what he will say or do when he is on the trail.

       He told supporters on Oct 22 at a local Democratic campaign office in New Hampshire that “we got to lock him up” – a reference to Trump.

       He quickly backtracked, saying he meant the former US president should be locked up “politically”, but the remarks “were not received well” within the campaign, according to two people briefed on the reaction of campaign officials.

       Some of the party’s most senior strategists said they believed Ms Harris had no choice but to distance herself from Mr Biden because she does not want voters to think of her as merely a continuation of his administration – even if that hurts the US President’s feelings.

       Mr Biden and his advisers want it to be known that he is still popular among voters who could help deliver Ms Harris to victory.

       As a president who spent nearly a half-century confident in his political prowess, Mr Biden does not want this final campaign to end with him sitting on the sidelines.

       On Oct 27, the White House announced that he would travel to Philadelphia on Nov 1 to deliver remarks on his administration’s “historic support for unions”, according to the advisory.

       Mr Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that Mr Biden “knows that every president needs to ‘cut their own path’, and he will continue to coordinate with the campaign on where and how he can be helpful, like he has done in recent days mobilising the labour unions he has worked with for decades”. NYTIMES