ANDREW NEIL: In a party obsessed with identity politics, her ascent looks unstoppable. But in her own way, she could be just as big a liability as Joe

President Biden had spent a miserable weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach, his home state of Delaware, 100 miles from the White House, self-isolating with COVID, coughing and coughing as the world passed him by.

Even Vice President Kamala Harris tried to replace him as the Democratic candidate in the November presidential election.

He left for Delaware on Friday after cutting short his campaign in Las Vegas, where he tested positive. But his people emphatically informed him that he was still running for re-election, and he even claimed that he would resume his campaign later this week.

But by Sunday afternoon he had decided the game was up, announcing that while he would remain president until his term ended in January, he would not seek re-election. Shortly thereafter, he said he was endorsing Harris for the Democratic nomination.

He had no choice. He had chosen Harris as his VP to show that, even though he was old and sick, he had chosen a younger woman who was fit to be president if he died in office. So how could he not support her now?

Biden remained invisible to the public all weekend, with only a handful of trusted advisers still in attendance. His self-interested wife, Jill, was also furious about Harris’ betrayal. She remained unwilling to see him step aside for a younger candidate, despite overwhelming evidence that he was incapable of running a grueling presidential campaign, let alone serving another four years in the White House.

His wife was one of the last to admit that he should step down. She enjoyed being First Lady. His disgraced son Hunter, who faced prison time, had his own reasons for wanting to keep his father in office. He had recently become part of Joe’s inner circle, even flying from California to Las Vegas to shore up his father’s backbone.

Biden’s mood at his beach house, where Hunter called regularly on weekends, swung between defiant and somber, bitter and resentful, as old friends and allies abandoned him, sometimes publicly but more often behind closed doors, orchestrating his removal.

Nearly 40 Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate had already joined the “Dump Biden” movement. He knew dozens more agreed, even if they hadn’t yet shown their hands.

The president was particularly angry at Barack Obama, whom he served as vice president for eight years. Obama had said nothing publicly, but no one in Washington, DC, doubted that he had joined the Dump Biden bandwagon.

It is particularly painful for Biden that his old boss and Democratic icon colluded with Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House and one of the president’s oldest and closest confidantes.

It was beginning to dawn on Biden, if not on his wife or son, that with Democratic aristocracy like Obama and Pelosi against him, plus the powers that be on Capitol Hill, his days were numbered. Sunday morning brought two more ominous developments.

Independent West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a recently converted Democrat and respected across party lines, took to one of America’s many Sunday morning talk shows to say it was time for Biden to resign. Even to an isolated Biden, surrounded only by true believers, it was clear that the dam was bursting.

Then came a new poll from the crucial Midwestern swing state of Michigan, showing Donald Trump ahead by seven points (49 percent to 42 percent).

The Detroit Free Press reported that “Trump led in every region of the state, including metro Detroit [a Democratic stronghold]Biden won Michigan by three points in 2020. The end of days for Biden’s presidency was near.

Biden’s withdrawal ends one dispute that has divided Democrats, but it could also open another that may be just as divisive: Should Harris, Biden’s constitutional heir apparent, inherit the Democratic nomination uncontested?

Or should there be a public convention when the Democratic National Committee meets in Chicago next month, a political beauty pageant featuring several candidates, one of which would be Harris?

Biden’s endorsement of his VP is intended to prevent a bloodbath in the Windy City. He hopes it will deter presidential hopefuls like Gov. Gavin Newsom (California), Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) and Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) from throwing their hats into the Democratic ring, turning Chicago into a coronation for Harris rather than a contest.

Even before Biden withdrew, Team Harris was spreading the word that the crown was hers by right, without question. That it would be unthinkable for Democrats — Democrats! — to pass over a Black woman who was already vice president for a white man (or even a white woman).

As one prominent black Democratic activist put it bluntly but thoughtlessly, “How in the world are you going to prioritize all these white people over Kamala?”

For a party where identity politics has become the dominant political ideology, this argument will resonate. Leading black and Hispanic Democrats on Capitol Hill are already making it. The party’s left-wing culture warriors are echoing it.

American news outlets, which are predominantly Democratic-leaning, were awash with Harris’s supporters all weekend, even before Biden withdrew. Many of them were new to the cause, praising her supposed virtues. They described the smears that would be heaped on those who think differently.

This will likely give other candidates pause. Why risk the wrath of the party’s core activists when Trump already seems hard to beat? The Clintons (Bill and Hillary) were quick to endorse Harris as well. Her nomination seems unstoppable, at least as things stand.

But it comes at a price. It means that the Democratic obsession with identity has trumped all other considerations — that the party’s nomination must now go to someone on the basis of gender and race rather than merit and ability. But it was on the basis of gender and race that Biden chose Harris as his running mate in the first place.

Team Harris is convinced that their wife, a generational changemaker who will disrupt the gerontocracy that has dominated American politics for too long, will challenge Trump in a way that Biden could not.

Maybe. But Harris has been a bland, often embarrassing vice president who rambles on in meaningless jumbles, laughs obnoxiously at the most inappropriate moments, and has no accomplishments to speak of.

It was only a few months ago that Biden’s people were complaining that she was a liability and were considering impeaching her (they concluded they couldn’t). So take what they’re saying about her now with a big bucket of salt.

The risk is that she will be as much of a nuisance in her own right as Biden was when the campaign really gets going in early September. Yes, she outperforms Biden when compared to Trump, but not by much — and every credible Democratic alternative to Biden outperforms him. Some outperform Harris. And that’s before the Republicans unleash their arsenal of anti-Harris propaganda.

This past weekend, the GOP gave us a taste of what’s to come: a scathing TV ad starring “Cackling Kamala” that focused on her inability to address one of the biggest problems in the election: the chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border, through which 10 million illegal immigrants have poured in over the past few years. Biden had tasked her with finding a solution to it.

When asked on television why she had not yet visited the border, she replied: ‘I have never been to Europe either.’

Trump never wanted Biden to step aside. He always saw him as the easiest to beat. He even called back the Republican war dogs when they were planning to impeach him. He feared a new face from a younger generation. Except for one: Harris. He thinks she will be even easier to beat than Biden.

Democrats are happy Biden is gone. But they are not nearly as happy as The Donald.