Presidential Debate 2012: What You Need to Know Before the Romney vs. Obama Debate Tonight on Economy, Healthcare

Republican challenger Mitt Romney will engage President Obama at the University of Denver on Wednesday night in their first presidential debate.

This debate, the first of three, will focus on domestic policy. The six-round debate will begin with three rounds on the economy and one additional round covering healthcare.

Going into this debate, Romney is in the more difficult position, as he has been behind in several recent polls, there are only five weeks until the election, and early voting has already begun in some important battleground states.

It's likely that the audience for the first debate will be higher than any political event before Election Day, so this is Romney's best and final opportunity to present his ideas for the country to the American public.

But Romney also has more to gain, since for the first time, Americans will see him presented an equal to the president, side-by-side on the dais.

Romney will probably be more aggressive than Obama. The president only needs to keep from losing the debate, since the status quo will have him winning reelection. But he'll try to bait Romney into an embarrassing gaffe, like the $10,000 bet Romney offered Rick Perry during the Republican primary debates.

It might be easier if Romney spends most of his time on the offensive--President Obama is accustomed to staying calm under pressure, and once Romney strays from scripted lines, he tends to fare poorly.

In addition, recent polls show that voters narrowly back the president on almost every issue except the federal deficit. Romney will attack Obama on that issue, claiming that Obama has increased government spending, raised taxes, and hurt small businesses, assertions fact-checkers deny.

Romney will also play to the uncertainty Americans still feel over the President's signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare.

The president, for his part, will attack Romney's tax plan, which calls for deeper tax cuts. Obama says those cuts unfairly benefit the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

He'll also point out that Obamacare was modeled on MassHealth, a heathcare initiative that Romney passed while he was governor of Massachusetts. The plan contained the same insurance mandate that Romney now decries in the Affordable care Act.