US VOTERS head to the polls on Tuesday to elect their next president.

Eve-of-election polls gave current Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democrat, a 1.2 per cent lead on average, and narrow leads in key swing states Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin — but she was neck and neck with Republican former president Donald Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

State-by-state results determine the outcome, with presidents not elected on the highest number of votes nationally but by securing a majority of the electoral college, with each state delivering a number of electors based on the size of its representation in Congress. 

Apart from Maine and Nebraska, the states allocate all their electors to the winning party in that state — meaning even a wafer-thin win in a big state like Pennsylvania, with 19 electors, can provide a huge boost to the winning candidate. Ms Harris and Mr Trump both focused on Pennsylvania on the last day of campaigning.

Ms Harris’s backing for Israel’s war has cost her significant support in the Muslim community especially, with a poll last Friday showing more US Muslims planned to vote for Green candidate Jill Stein than for her.

The Communist Party USA called for voters to prioritise the defeat of Mr Trump, answering the charge that this means backing the “lesser evil” — a Democrat candidate at the heart of an administration facilitating Israel’s genocide in Gaza — with the argument that the strategy is one of “fighting for space,” securing a government under which the fights for housing, healthcare, trade union rights, women’s rights including to abortion and for ethnic minorities and LGBT people can be fought more easily than under Mr Trump.