Gov. Tim Walz had been in office for just over a year when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Minnesota and civil unrest engulfed the Twin Cities after the police killing of George Floyd.

Minnesota Republicans frequently criticized Walz’s handling of both crises during his 2022 reelection campaign, but the 60-year-old governor’s decisions will get deeper scrutiny now that he is on the national ticket. Those events, along with concerns about fraud in his administration, are likely targets for former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.

“I have a record in Minnesota that’s extensive, and I think people will take a look at that and they will make a decision on what they think is best for them,” Walz told reporters recently.

U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Republican who represents a suburban Twin Cities district, called Walz an empty suit and launched a line of partisan criticism on social media that will no doubt be repeated in coming weeks.

“He embodies the same disastrous economic, open-borders, and soft-on-crime policies Harris has inflicted on our country the last four years,” Emmer’s post read.

Another issue with Walz is his speaking style. While knowledgeable and willing to defer when he’s not prepared to answer, he knows how to speak in terms average voters can relate to, such as referring to the Trump ticket as weird. In debates, interviews and news conferences, he appears comfortable speaking extemporaneously and from the heart without notes. But he can also provide meandering responses that change direction and amount to word salad.

Trump’s official campaign account on X posted criticism of Walz as soon as Vice President Kamala Harris announced him as her running mate. The Trump camp roasted Walz for signing a 2023 bill allowing unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, and highlighted his handling of the protests after Floyd’s murder.

“Rioters burned Minneapolis to the ground for days. Tim Walz was nowhere to be found,” the campaign’s post read.

Expect to hear much more of that criticism in the coming months. The Trump campaign and other Republicans were already criticizing Harris for urging donations to a Minnesota-based bail fund for those arrested in the Floyd protests. Walz will now be under more intense scrutiny for his handling of the riots, which came in the early months of the pandemic.

“They make an interesting tag team, because of course, Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020. And then the few who got caught, Kamala Harris helped bail them out of jail,” Vance told Fox News on Tuesday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis echoed that sentiment in a post on X Tuesday: “Minnesota was ground zero for the BLM riots of 2020. Harris egged it on and Walz sat by and let Minneapolis burn.”

The Twin Cities saw extensive unrest, looting, vandalism and arson after Floyd’s murder. Law enforcement struggled to contain the sprawling protests, prompting some neighborhoods to set up loose patrols of their own streets.

Minneapolis police were ordered to evacuate their Third Precinct building — in the heart of the riots— and saw it torched by protesters. The Minnesota National Guard had been ready for deployment to assist police in riot control, but the Guard didn’t arrive at the precinct until hours after it had burned. A National Guard Bureau spokesman said Walz was in charge of the deployment timeline.

Relations between Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey remain frosty on the topic. After the precinct burned, Walz criticized Frey’s response as an “abject failure.” A spokesman for Walz said Frey didn’t provide enough information to define a mission for the Guard.

Months later, Frey blamed Walz, saying the governor didn’t take his requests for assistance seriously until it was too late. After-action assessments determined there had been a communication breakdown.

Walz was recently asked about the response. “When you’re serving in the moment on these things, I think on anything, you go back and look,” Walz said. “Decisions were made in a situation that is what it is, and I said we believed we tried to do the best that we can in each of those.”

Along with his response to those events, expect to hear plenty about Walz’s support and signature on a raft of progressive policies passed by the Legislature in 2023.

In one session, the Legislature enshrined abortion rights into the state constitution, provided free meals for all K-12 students regardless of income, and made Minnesota a sanctuary for those seeking gender-affirming care. The governor and the Legislature also reinstated voting rights for felons upon release from incarceration.

The governor will talk about his lifelong affinity for hunting, dating back to his days with his late father. He’s signed gun-safety measures the past two legislative sessions, including a red flag bill and a ban on binary triggers.

—Staff writer Briana Bierschbach contributed to this report.

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