Kamala is who they clearly wanted to cheat in, since she has all the diversity cred while also being sound enough of mind to cooperate with them.

However, she was rejected by even her own party, so they chose Joe as the trojan horse. However, this backfired, because he was also unpopular in his own party. In the end, while they got their puppet into power, they also delegitimized their system in the eyes of a sizeable number of people.