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As Vice President Kamala Harris moves closer to the Democratic presidential nomination, some top Republicans are focusing their attacks on her race and gender. She is the highest-ranking woman ever to hold office in the U.S. and the first person of Black and South Asian Heritage to be vice president. Now, she could become the first female president. NPR’s Sarah McCammon looks at how Harris’ identity is shaping the campaign.

SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: There’s a consistent theme in recent days coming from a host of prominent Republicans.

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TIM BURCHETT: One hundred percent – she was a DEI hire.

SEBASTIAN GORKA: This trap they’ve created for themselves of Kamala, the DEI hire.

HARRIET HAGEMAN: I think she was a DEI hire, and I think that that’s what we’re seeing.

MCCAMMON: That was Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee on CNN, Trump ally Sebastian Gorka on Newsmax, and Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman in a clip posted by journalist Josh Rultenberg. On Fox Business, a guest repeated that idea and added a reference to a vulgar TikTok meme which seemed to imply, without evidence, that Harris had somehow used sex to advance her career.

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ALEC LACE: Kamala Harris – she’s the original hawk tuah girl. That’s the way she got where she is.

MCCAMMON: That’s Alec Lace, host of a podcast called “First Class Fatherhood.” For Harris supporters, like Fatima Goss Graves of the National Women’s Law Center, these crude stereotypes about powerful women are no surprise.

FATIMA GOSS GRAVES: Rather than talking about their out-of-step views, they’re trying to resort to old tactics of scaring people using racist and sexist tropes. And so it is totally predictable, but it is also ridiculous.

MCCAMMON: She says it’s a sign Republicans are running scared.

GOSS GRAVES: These attacks just demonstrate how desperate they are.

MCCAMMON: Supporters also see Harris as well-positioned to take on former President Trump on key issues, including abortion rights. Ange-Marie Hancock is a political scientist at The Ohio State University and curator of the Kamala Harris Project.

ANGE-MARIE HANCOCK: There is very much this idea that they want to make sure that she’s seen as not qualified.

MCCAMMON: It’s not a new idea. In a Fox News clip from 2021 that’s been circulating widely this week, JD Vance, now Trump’s running mate, cast Harris this way.

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JD VANCE: We’re effectively run, in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC…

MCCAMMON: To be clear, Buttigieg is now a father, and Harris has two stepchildren, one of whom came to her defense this week. Hancock, the political scientist, says messages about Harris’ gender may be aimed at an important group of swing voters.

HANCOCK: Those kinds of things are really designed to appeal to those suburban women voters who are more traditional in their values about what kind of life women lead.

MCCAMMON: Harris’ supporters say these attacks may backfire for Republicans by galvanizing the Democratic base, and some conservatives agree it’s not the right message. Republican strategist Deana Bass Williams was the press secretary for Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign.

DEANA BASS WILLIAMS: Republicans do a much better job – and we win – when we are talking about the failed Biden policies. So I don’t think that it is appropriate to use that kind of language, and I also don’t think it’s effective.

MCCAMMON: In a memo this week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee advised campaigns to focus on policy, including Harris’ role as the so-called border czar. It also encouraged candidates to label Harris as weird and focus on several traits, including the way she laughs.

Sarah McCammon, NPR News.

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