Kamala Harris assumed office in historic fashion, becoming the first woman to serve "a heartbeat away from the presidency".
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But her first year as vice-president has been far from a smooth ride.
The job has not come easy. Ms Harris' approval ratings have slumped. The president has tasked her with assignments that range from the intractable to virtually insoluble. Her office has been beset by high-profile resignations.
If Ms Harris accepted her party's vice-presidential nomination thinking she would be anointed as the Democratic heir apparent to the presidency, it was a notion that did not take long to dispel.
While Mr Biden said in a press conference on Wednesday that he would keep her as his running mate if he stands for re-election, it remains to be seen whether that will put to rest speculation about her political future.
So what, exactly, has gone wrong for her - and can she set it right? There are no easy explanations and few easy answers.
A polling gut-punch
It was, without a doubt, an ugly poll. According to a November survey by USA Today, Ms Harris' public approval rating sat at 28%, making her one of the least popular vice-presidents in modern history - lower than Iraq War architect Dick Cheney, who was reviled by Democrats.
If there was one moment that truly set off the spate of "what's wrong with Kamala Harris" stories that dominated the latter half of 2021, it was that "comically bad" poll, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it. The poll effectively framed the conversation about the vice-president as one of struggle and disappointment.
Upon closer inspection, however, the survey appears more of an outlier. It looked particularly bad because 21% of respondents said they were undecided about Harris. Just over half of the poll respondents had a negative view of the vice-president, which is roughly on par with Mr Biden's negative ratings.
A tough portfolio
Since taking office, Ms Harris has been tasked with two high-profile assignments. The first is to address the root causes of undocumented migration into the US from Central American countries. The number of immigrants crossing into the US from the "Northern Triangle" of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras surged during the first year of the Biden presidency, and the administration was looking for ways to stem the flow while reversing some of the more draconian policies of the Trump administration.
The job as described was daunting, but manageable. Mr Biden served a similar role as vice-president in the Obama administration.
But some characterised her responsibilities to include the entirety of immigration and border security - a challenge decades in the making and one that, in all likelihood, will take decades to solve.
