Joe Biden and Paul Ryan will defend their political parties’ platforms at the vice presidential debate from 8 to 9:30 p.m Thursday, Oct. 11, in Danville, Ky.

The debate will cover foreign and domestic policies and will be split into nine different sections.

The vice presidential debate will reinforce the positions Mitt Romney and Barack Obama brought forward in the presidential debate last week. Some of the main points that will be discussed are Medicare, social security, abortion and immigrant workers.

Ryan is expected to talk about cutting health care and privatizing medicare and social security. It is expected that Ryan will also discuss further military involvement in foreign matter and the economy.

Biden will likely speak against tax cuts for the rich, in favor of abortions in the case of rape, illegal immigration and cutting funding on agricultural subsidies.

Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science, said people can expect a bit of a bout.

“Biden will try to beat up Ryan and show that he’s extreme on Medicare and abortion for women who are raped,” Schmidt said. “Biden will attack [Ryan] on tax breaks for the rich who don’t need tax breaks, and Biden will hit hard on Bain Capital, on Romney’s overseas accounts, no tax returns for the past 10 years, and really hard on Romney’s 47 percent statement.”

Schmidt said Ryan won’t take Biden’s accusations lying down, though.

“Ryan will try to trip up Biden so he will make a major blooper and nail Obama/Biden on failure to defend our ambassador in Libya, leaving our children the biggest debt in history and destroying healthcare with ObamaCare,” Schmidt said.

Joshua Arment, sophomore in pre-business, gave his thoughts on the upcoming debate.

“I think Paul Ryan will do better in the debate due to previous speaking experience,” Arment said. “I think Ryan will trip up Biden because of his views on abortion and gay rights. I don’t think Biden is as good of a speaker as Ryan, and that gives the upper hand to Ryan, with being able to recover better and make Biden mess up more.”

Vice presidential debates are not historically as influential as the presidential debates, but they can still help voters who are undecided in the final days of the election.