Voters are attaching less importance to tonight’s vice presidential debate compared to the one four years ago but think Paul Ryan will do more in the debate to help his running mate than Joe Biden will.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters consider the performance of the vice presidential candidates in the debate to be at least somewhat important to how they will vote, while 40% disagree. This includes 18% who view the candidates’ performances as Very Important and 12% who rate them as Not At All Important to their vote. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on October 9-10, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Fieldwork for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC . See methodology.