It is exactly 635 and the countdown is on to the presidential debate. Vice President Harris and former President Trump will go head to head on the stage in just a matter of hours. I caught up with A B C's Washington Bureau chief Rick Klein. Uh what is gonna happen tonight? Rick is this debate extra important tonight? If one of the candidates has a particularly poor showing. Yes, I think because we are so close to the election and because this is the first debate, it might also be the last debate between these two candidates. I do think it takes on outsized importance. We're just, you know, only eight weeks out from the election and there's so many people that have said they want to know more about Kamala Harrison or policy positions. Obviously, Donald Trump is pretty well known. There isn't much to learn new about him but how he, how they interact with each other. I do think it takes on out outside importance even though there aren't that many undecided voters in this country. That's a good point. So most people know about Trump and you briefly touched on this. People still not quite sure that they truly know the vice president and what she stands for is that realistic? Yes. I mean, look, a third of the country in the New York Times poll said they want more information about her before deciding how to vote, even though she's been vice president for four years. That is four years where she didn't really take many policy positions of her own. Her campaign website just got updated in the last couple of hours with some more tangible policy positions, but she hasn't had a general election presidential debate to flesh it out and she's only been a candidate for what about six weeks or so? So all of this is still very fresh and very new for voters to uh to, to, to begin to digest and begin the process. Yes, you mentioned recent poll numbers that 90% of voters are already locked in on a candidate. They're going to vote based on that or party lines. What will the candidates have to say or do to sway those undecided or people that might switch their vote? Yes, I mean, look, those are different universes because you've got some people that might be undecided about whether to vote or not to vote who might be different than the people that are really on the fence between the two candidates and, and obviously you can win either way or lose either way if you don't do a good job with it. So I really think the challenge is defining yourself but also being cognizant of the of the personal reaction side of this, these two people have never been on the same stage before. This is all going to be kind of new for them. And a lot of people react to debates in more visceral ways, just what's the sense they get of the person versus the policy. So in your experience from covering presidential elections, is this right now as we stand the most unpredictable in terms of potential outcome based on how close the polls are and the swing states? Yeah, I mean, look, you're only down to about seven swing states. None of that changed as a result of Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden on the ticket. What did change is the Democratic enthusiasm and now you've got a much more even match and I think the polling has reflected that as well. Bottom line is no one knows what's going to happen over the next eight weeks. No one knows who's going to win this election. We really are in basically a toss up type of a type of a situation nationally, but also more importantly for electoral college votes in the seven battleground states that are so close and election night is gonna go late into the night. Here's a look at the schedule for this night starts with a special edition of ABC 10 news at 430 live debate coverage starts at five, the debate is at six, then start with us for the latest news and weather headlines at 8, 1030 late news tonight. At 11 o'clock, we're busy here in the newsroom. You can also watch the debate through our ABC 10 app.