What Time is Biden vs. Ryan VP Debate?

What many observers are calling a lackluster presidential debate earlier this week has raised the stakes of the only vice presidential debate, scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 11, at Centre College in Danville, KY. 

Vice President Joe Biden and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan will debate for an hour and one-half on Thursday, beginning at 8 p.m. CDT.

Iowa's influential Republicans seem happy enough with Mitt Romney's decision to make Ryan his vice-presidential running mate, but they have doubts about the ticket's ability to attract all-important swing voters in this crucial swing state, according to a Red Iowa survey conducted immediately following Romney's announcement.

Wall Street Journal editors and reporters said in Friday’s “Roundtable” that Biden’s mandate to be combative is “overwhelming” and that he needs to demand specifics about claims Republican nominee Mitt Romney made Wednesday, including one that there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit.

Biden needs to question Romney’s math, “which the president skated up to and then pulled back from,” said Jerry Seib, Journal bureau chief.

They expect Ryan to play a “truth squad” role, something Romney did to a limited extent, and bring energy to the debate.

With the Nov. 6 election a month away, Romney still has time to close the narrow margin separating the two campaigns.

Iowa State University professor and frequent commenter on campaigns Steffen Schmidt wrote in a recent blog that President Barack Obama lost the first debate, but it doesn't really matter.

At best, debates provide a “nudge” in very close elections like 1960,1980, or 2000. A even more comprehensive study, by political scientists Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, which includes every publicly available poll from the presidential elections between 1952 and 2008, comes to a similar conclusion: excluding the 1976 election, which saw Carter’s lead drop steadily throughout the fall, “the best prediction from the debates is the initial verdict before the debates.” In other words, in the average election year, you can accurately predict where the race will stand after the debates by knowing the state of the race before the debates.”

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Vice Presidential Debate
Date: Thursday, Oct. 11.
Time: 8 to 9:30 p.m. (central).
Where: Centre College in Danville, KY.
Who: Vice President Joe Biden and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.
Moderator: Martha Raddatz, ABC News chief foreign correspondent.
Topic: Foreign and domestic policy.