US Election 2024 Guide: As Americans go to the polls MailOnline breaks down probably the most knife-edge race to the White House

Americans are heading to the polls today to decide the next president in what has become the closest race to White House in decades.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump made their final case Monday in the hours before Election Day, when voters will either choose America’s first woman president or hand the Republican an unprecedented comeback.

Trump – the Republican nominee – promised to lead the United States to ‘new heights of glory’ while Democrat Harris said the ‘momentum is on our side’ as the polls show the pair in a dead heat.

With everything potentially coming down to a few thousand votes in seven key battleground states, the outcome of the election has never been more uncertain.  

Here’s MailOnline’s guide to the 2024 US Election…

How the Electoral College system works and the 270 votes that will decide who wins 

The Electoral College is voting system that is made up of a 538-member body of ‘electors’ who vote for the president.

Each US state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress – those in the House and the Senate. There are currently 538 electors in all, including three for Washington DC, which is represented in the system despite not being a state. 

Each state’s electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state. 

The runner-up gets nothing – except in Nebraska and Maine where elector votes are awarded based on congressional district and statewide results. 

To win the presidency, a candidate must secure 270 electoral votes – a majority of the 538 possible votes.

What are the 7 key battleground swing states and why do they matter?

Trump and Harris are fighting to win the electoral votes in seven so-called swing states – states that don’t clearly favor one political party over the other.

Both candidates have been aggressively campaigning across the country, but in the lead up to Election Day have concentrated efforts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In a razor-tight election, just a handful of votes in any of those states could ultimately decide the fate of the White House.

ECONOMY

Trump has vowed to impose sweeping tariffs on imported goods and on specific companies and countries.

He pledged to end taxes on tips and overtime, to make emergency generators tax-deductible in states hit by natural disasters, to lower corporate tax rates and to open federal lands to foreign companies and housing. 

Harris’ economic plans include tax cuts for most Americans, bans on price gouging, more affordable housing and a new child tax credit, as well as efforts to boost domestic manufacturing. 

She proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 per cent from 21 per cent and ending taxes on tips. 

CRIME

Tackling crime has been a focal point of Trump’s campaign, with the Republican nominee repeatedly casting himself as the ‘law and order’ candidate. 

In February last year, he laid out his plan to tackle crime which involved a ‘record investment in hiring, retention and training’ for police officers across the country and strengthened liability protections for law enforcement agencies. 

He has also called for police officers to be entitled to ‘immunity from prosecution.’

Trump has also pledged to ‘send in federal assets’, such as the National Guard, to combat lawlessness in US cities and wants to provide federal funding for the use of ‘stop and frisk’ tactics.

While on the campaign trail, Harris has leaned more heavily into her personal background as a prosecutor and contrasted that with Trump being found guilty of 34 felony counts in a New York hush money case and being found liable for fraudulent business practices and sexual abuse in civil court. 

However, while she has highlighted her work as a ‘progressive prosecutor’, critics note that she has repeatedly contradicted herself on crime issues.

She emphasized the fight for racial justice during her 2019 presidential bid, but had implemented racial bias training for parts of law enforcement while serving as attorney general in California.

She has previously said that she would expand investigations into police misconduct and set a national standard for use of force. She also wanted to require states to report use of force incidents and create a national police misconduct registry.

Harris – who reiterated on the 2024 campaign trail that she is a gun owner and supports Second Amendment rights – has also advocated for a ban of assault rifles, universal background checks and red flag laws, which allow a state court to order the temporary seizure of firearms from a person believed to be a danger.

ABORTION

Trump takes credit for the US Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade protections, saying abortion laws should be left to the states. Trump said he does not support banning birth control. 

Harris has made reproductive rights and personal freedoms a rallying cry and has called on Congress to pass national legislation codifying access to safe abortion. 

She has promoted President Joe Biden’s administration’s efforts short of federal law, including steps to protect women who travel to access the procedure and limit how law enforcement collects medical records. 

Her argument to the public is rooted in the concept of freedom, saying ‘the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body should not be made by the government.’

IMMIGRATION

Trump has made immigration a top issue throughout his campaign, promising mass deportations, including legal Haitian immigrants given Temporary Protected Status in Springfield, Ohio. 

He said he would end birthright citizenship and expand a travel ban on people from certain countries. 

Harris has promised tougher immigration and fentanyl controls at the border. 

FOREIGN POLICY 

Trump has vowed to fundamentally alter the US relationship with NATO and to resolve the Ukraine war with possible peace talks that might require Kyiv to cede territory.

He has said Hamas must be ‘crushed’ and vowed to be tougher on Iran, but has given few details or policy proposals. 

Harris is expected to stick largely to Biden’s playbook on key foreign policy issues such as Ukraine, China and Iran.

She pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a Gaza ceasefire deal but has also taken a hard line against Hamas, saying the terrorist group must be ‘eliminated,’ and remains committed to the US policy of arming Israel.  

CLIMATE CHANGE 

Trump, who has previously branded climate change as a ‘hoax’, has campaigned on a platform involving a rollback of climate regulations passed under Biden designed to curb the release of greenhouse gases from the oil and gas industry.

That includes leaving the Paris Agreement, under which countries pledge to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, and potentially undoing Biden’s flagship IRA, which provides massive subsidies and incentives to clean energy technologies.

Harris’ climate and energy positions are similar to those held by Biden, who made fighting climate change a top priority. 

How the polls have shifted and how they’re shaping up

The polls are on a knife’s edge this year and the next president could be decided by just a few thousand votes.

The Real Clear Polling average has Trump up over Harris nationally by 0.1 per cent. 

But the race may end up being the closest in US history as a new TIPP poll had both candidates tied on 48 percent on the election eve.

Betting markets on Monday showed Trump has recaptured a slight lead over Harris after a shock Iowa poll had him behind the VP in the solidly red state.

When will we know who has won US 2024 election? 

As every state follows different procedures for counting and reporting results, there will be a wide range of times that the winner is determined in each, whether on Tuesday night, into early Wednesday or beyond. 

As soon as the polls close in a state on Tuesday evening, that state can be called by the US news networks for either Harris or Trump. 

For those states that traditionally vote solidly Republican (such as Wyoming and Oklahoma) or Democrat (California and New York), the call is likely to happen almost the moment the polls close, before a single vote has been officially counted.

But where the race is expected to be close – like in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia or Pennsylvania – news outlets will want to wait until most votes are actually counted and reported before making a projection. 

Because of this, some states might not be called for either candidate for hours, possibly days. 

With polls showing the race a virtual coin flip between Trump and Harris, it is unclear how long it will take for the winner to be announced this time. 

In 2020, the Associated Press called 26 states instantly when their polls closed and another five came in less than an hour.

Within 24 hours, 45 states and the District of Columbia had been called. But Biden and Trump were still short of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win.

Biden declared victory three-and-a-half days after the polls closed, when the AP called Pennsylvania.

Millions of voters have also sent in mail-in ballots, which take much longer to count than those cast at in-person polling places and factor in more greatly on election night calls in a tight race.

Some, including swing states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, won’t begin counting absentee ballots until Election Day itself, which could delay results further given how consequential they may be to both candidates’ paths to victory.