Walz faced Scott Jensen, a former Minnesota Republican state senator, in 2022 as he sought reelection in the Gopher State. The pair met on Oct. 18 in a debate sponsored by Gray Television, sparring over COVID-19 policy, diversity, abortion, and other topics.

Things got heated more than once, with Jensen even accusing Walz of tossing out a “word salad with no substance,” but it was enough for Walz to win in the left-leaning state with 52% of the vote to Jensen’s 45%, which set the Democrat up to become Vice President Kamala Harris‘s running mate two years later.

David Schultz, a political professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, said Walz’s debate style has evolved from his days as a centrist Democrat in Congress to the more liberal stance he took against Jensen.

“He has become solidly partisan in laying out his positions, becoming more much aggressive as a debater than he was before,” Schultz said. “Whether that debate [against Jensen] is where he has evolved to, being more of a pit bull, I don’t know. But certainly, the tone and substance has really shifted.”

Here are some of the debate tactics Walz demonstrated in 2022 that he may seek to replicate Tuesday at 9 p.m. at the vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News.

Walz goes on the attack over abortion

It didn’t take long for Walz to try and pin Jensen on a divisive topic during their debate. When asked about abortion policy just a few months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Jensen said abortion is a constitutionally protected right in Minnesota.

“It is not on the ballot in November,” Jensen said before pivoting to speak about inflation, crime, and education.

“As governor, I won’t ban abortion. I can’t,” the Republican continued, accusing Walz of fearmongering on the matter.

Walz went on the attack when it was his turn to speak.

“I just want to be absolutely clear: this is on the ballot. It will impact generations to come,” he said. “I trust women. I trust them to make their own health care decisions.

Walz accused Jensen of flip-flopping on abortion, something he is also likely to do against Vance, who in the past has expressed support for a 15-week abortion ban with exceptions but backtracked from that stance more recently.

“A clear win for Walz is if he says nothing wrong and he has Vance on defense the whole time,” Schultz said, “mostly about abortion.”

Questions about COVID-19 haunt Walz

A topic that was already dated in 2022 and is even more so now could nonetheless put Walz on the defense. Walz was a staunch pandemic policy advocate, even setting up a hotline for Minnesotans to turn in their neighbors for violating lockdown, which doesn’t look good in hindsight.

When asked about the extensive learning loss of children who were kept out of school classrooms, Walz struggled to find a message.

“We’ve seen a lot during the pandemic,” Walz said as part of a lengthy answer. “One of the things we saw great resiliency amongst these students, and now, once we have them back in the classroom, we’re doing new ways of making sure they’re able to get content.”

“I heard a lot of words there,” Jensen responded, “but I don’t quite know that they made a lot of sense.”

Energy policy at issue again

One topic that isn’t dated is energy policy, which Jensen tried to ding Walz on more than once.

Jensen accused Walz of forcing Minnesotans to buy electric vehicles and copying California’s left-wing ideas, something that former President Donald Trump has accused Walz and Harris of this year. Walz was also accused of trying to shut down mines in the northern part of the state, which he denied.

“If you don’t want to buy [an EV], don’t buy one,” Walz responded. “But if you’re going to buy one in Minnesota, we have the opportunity to continue to grow our economy, to continue to make that transition, to understand that that is where the market and the climate is going.”

Jensen was not impressed.

“This is just a word salad with no substance,” he said.

Walz hit back hard on the mining accusations and said he’d made the largest investment in mining northern Minnesota had seen in decades. Vance is expected to knock Walz about energy, too, not concerning mining in Minnesota but over fracking in Pennsylvania, which is arguably the biggest swing state of them all.

Walz and Jensen dance the tax tango

Walz and Jensen both claimed to be better for the middle class when it comes to taxes, a moment that could be repeated during the Oct. 1 debate.

“We’ve lowered taxes on the middle class,” Walz said, claiming he worked with Republicans to create $4 billion in middle-class tax cuts.

When it was Jensen’s turn, he changed the subject slightly, shifting from taxes to Walz’s response to the George Floyd protests.

“If you get what you pay for in Minnesota, I guess Gov. Walz didn’t pay very much for the police because we’ve got a lawlessness like we’ve never seen before,” he said.

Jensen also attacked Walz over pandemic program tax fraud in the state, saying Walz’s office was “lazy” in tracking down the problem. Walz said the problem had been handled, and the perpetrators would be put in jail.

So, what will Walz need to do to beat Vance? Schultz said he doubts voters will pay too much attention to the vice presidents, so the first priority will simply be to do no harm.

“Stick to the basic themes, stick to the script,” Schultz said. “The question becomes, do you moderate and hope you can pick up swing voters, or do you say, ‘Let’s keep going and get the base hot and bothered and excited.’ I think it will be, ‘Let’s keep the base motivated.’”