Washington ? Sarah Palin entered the vice presidential debate in St. Louis on Thursday night facing an electorate increasingly dubious about her readiness for the nation’s second-highest office.

With a relatively steady performance, the Alaska governor might have helped arrest voters’ declining confidence in her candidacy since John McCain put her on the Republican ticket five weeks ago.

Palin’s much-anticipated showdown against Democrat Joe Biden seems unlikely to significantly shake up a campaign whose momentum increasingly has appeared to be with Barack Obama.

Debates typically reinforce voters’ existing perceptions, rather than dramatically alter them. And Biden, whose history of making gaffes is Washington legend, stuck largely to safe ground.

The six-term Delaware senator avoided direct attacks on Palin, focusing his criticism instead on McCain, a tried-and-true tactic for the No. 2 member of a ticket.

Palin, too, slipped into a traditional vice presidential role, touting McCain’s work in Congress and criticizing Obama and Biden for their tax proposals and Iraq policy.

She also brought her distinctly folksy style to the debate hall, winking occasionally and peppering her speech with “you betcha” and “darn right.”

Early in the debate, Palin invoked a suburban scene to discuss the state of the economy.

“I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out, ‘Has this been a good time or a bad time in America’s economy?’ is go to a kids’ soccer game on Saturday and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, ‘How are you feeling about the economy?'” Palin said. “And I’ll betcha you’re going to hear some fear in that parent’s voice.”

Palin’s personal stories have been the core of her campaign stump speech, where she talks often about her family and her state, underscoring her qualifications as a Washington outsider.

But the first-term governor’s popularity has ebbed more recently as she struggled in television interviews to convey an understanding of foreign policy, the Supreme Court, even the legislative record of her running mate.

Just 37 percent of respondents in a poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press said they believed she was ready to be president, compared to more than half immediately after the convention.

And many analysts said before the debate that Palin needed to show greater command of the issues if McCain is to recapture the momentum in the last month of the campaign.

Thursday, she again appeared most comfortable discussing her work in Alaska state government and her support for more oil exploration – both topics she has emphasized on the campaign trail.

But Palin also carefully ticked off the leaders of Iran, North Korea and Cuba, mentioned a recent discussion with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and spoke directly into the camera as she endorsed a two-state solution to settle the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

And in a development that will comfort her supporters, Palin did not appear stumped by any questions, as she did several times this week while being interviewed by CBS’ Katie Couric.

The debate did not produce any revelations about the Alaska governor, and it deviated little from the standard plot line of vice presidential showdowns.

Biden, who was almost an afterthought in the run-up to the debate, stayed on point, linking McCain repeatedly to an unpopular President Bush and his party.

“We let Wall Street run wild,” Biden said in response to a question about the subprime mortgage meltdown. “John McCain, and he’s a good man, but John McCain thought that the answer is that tried-and-true Republican response: deregulate, deregulate.”

And Palin, for all the focus on how she would perform, spent much of the debate touting her running mate’s legislative record. “He has been the maverick,” she said. “He has ruffled feathers.”