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Well, economic issues are expected to be much of the focus of tonight's presidential debate. Housing costs, taxes, and inflation at the front of minds of many voters. With this possibly being the only opportunity to see former President Trump and Vice President Harris debate each other this election season, what should both voters and investors be listening for when the two candidates hit the stage this evening? For more, we welcome in Tobin Marcus, Wolf Research head of US policy and politics. So for what we're expecting here, how much strength in agenda and and actual tactical approaches do you think we'll hear from both candidates, Tobin?

So look, I I think at in large part this debate is going to end up being a contest of who can define the other candidate as the bigger risk. Uh Harris certainly is the candidate that voters are heading into the debate with more questions about. So Trump is going to be trying to characterize her agenda and her record as radical and far left and out of the mainstream, out of step with voter's values. She is going to uh you know, try to explain this much more moderate agenda that she's running on now relative to where she's been in the past in terms that can connect with voters. So I think the the room for kind of uh policy talk for incremental um policy explanations primarily comes from Harris's side because they're both going to be uh vying to define her and to talk about what it is that she stands for and will do. Um but I don't think that from an investor perspective, we're really going to learn a lot more about uh what it is that she's proposing beyond what she's already laid out. You know, she's done this series of policy roll outs in recent weeks. Her campaign put up an issues page just this past weekend. So I think we've seen their considered judgment about what agenda they want to lay out to the American people. The question now is, you know, can she explain that in terms that uh that are believable to swing voters who haven't yet decided.

Tobin, when you take into account what's been priced into the market, we have we have certainly seen a shift, right, ever since Kamala Harris joined uh the race here and we've seen her poll numbers rise, obviously, versus Trump versus what we saw when Biden was in the race. How much I guess in terms of what investors are rooting for or hoping for, what is the best outcome for the market? Is one clearly better than the other or how should investors be evaluating that?

So I wouldn't say that there that one is clearly better than the other. I think that there's a mix of risks and opportunities in both scenarios. You know, to me from an investor perspective, thinking about the policy outlook in 2025, the most important thing to keep in mind in this very very tight race, because I do think that we're going to, you know, it's going to continue to be not too far from a toss up all the way through election day, is that Trump will probably have unified Republican control of Congress if he wins, whereas Harris will probably have a Republican Senate. So the policy outcomes in a Harris win scenario are divided government outcomes. She'll have control over personnel, but all the fiscal policy is going to have to be bipartisan deals. So there's no need to worry about things like uh taxes on unrealized capital gains. Likely no need to worry about an increase in the corporate rate, which would be the big kind of market wide headwind you'd worry about under her. I don't think any of that stuff is getting through a Republican Senate. Whereas in a Trump scenario, you know, he might be able to get Republicans to align behind a corporate rate cut, although I think that's probably challenging fiscally, but you do have to worry about his tariffs uh which are um both a direct headwind for a lot of industrial and consumer names as well as a macro influence that could prevent the Fed from uh cutting as quickly as it wants to. Um as well as, you know, some of these more sector specific both risks and opportunities, you know, deregulatory benefits and sectors like financials, but also potential headwinds and sectors like clean energy where he may try and coddle or scale back some of the IRA benefits. So you know, a lot more room for change under Trump. Uh some sectors look a lot better than others as as winners and losers from Trump, but I don't think it's the sort of uniform, one's better than the other.