The US presidential election is finally underway after months of tireless campaigning from Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
Polls have already opened, with certain areas of Vermont coming first at 5am ET (10am GMT). They begin to close in the eastern states first from 6pm ET on Tuesday (midnight GMT).
Latest polls indicate an incredibly tight race, with 538 and ABC News predicting victory for Vice President Harris, with 48.1% of the votes compared to Trump’s 46.8%.
The margin of less than 2% has put even more pressure on the Democrat to sweep the swing states as they will be vital to her path to the White House.
The swing seven states are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Both candidates ended their campaign trails in crucial swing states, with Harris opting for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Trump closing out in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
These are incredibly important because they all use a “winner takes all” approach to allocating votes in a presidential election. The only two states that don’t use this system are Nebraska and Maine.
This means that all the swing states will allocate all of their delegates to one candidate to vote in the Electoral College. Similarly to MPs in the UK, delegates are people elected to represent their party in the House of Representatives.
This system in the US is also based on population – the largest states, such as Texas and California, carry the most weight in the Electoral College because they get more votes, making them more important to win over.
A candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes to win, and California alone contains 54, so winning there already puts them well on their way to presidential victory.
But who do you think will end up in the Oval Office? Have your say in our poll below…
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On the flip side, “safe states”, also labelled “red states” for Republicans and “blue states” for Democrats, are those which consistently favour one party.
For the Republicans, these include: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. For the Democrats, these include: California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and New York.
There have been fears of a repeat of the January 6 insurrection if Trump loses once again, as some of his more ardent supporters still don’t believe he lost the previous election.
Governor Jim Justice previously called ofr his fellow Republicans to become “totally unhinged” if Trump doesn’t become president.
