Pete Buttigieg has been tapped to stand in for Vice President Mike Pence in mock debates with Senator Kamala Harris ahead of the vice presidential debate on October 7th in Salt Lake City, Bloomberg reports. In an attempt to lower expectations for her own performance, Harris recently told a fundraiser crowd of Pence, “He’s a good debater. So, I’m so concerned, like I can only disappoint.”

According to the new report, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor was selected for the role because of his familiarity with Pence, who served as Indiana’s governor before Donald Trump selected him to be his running mate in 2016. During the primary campaign, Buttigieg would often criticize Pence for his anti-gay stance.

“He seems to think that the universe was created a few thousand years ago and that people like me get up in the morning and decide to be gay,” Buttigieg told Stephen Colbert in early 2019. “And the thing about it is, if that was a choice, it was a choice that was made way above my pay grade. So what he doesn’t realize is that his quarrel is with my creator. My marriage has moved me closer to God and I wish he respected that.”