CHICAGO — A counterprotester outside the anti-Israel march on the Democratic National Convention told Fox News Digital the event represented ‘Jew hatred’ and that the message will push Jewish voters to support former President Trump in November.

‘It is putrid Jew hatred under the guise of a political movement,’ Anna Steinberg, director of Israel365, told Fox News Digital on the perimeter of the city’s Union Park as anti-Israel protesters were gathering before their march on the DNC on Monday.

Steinberg, a Ukrainian Jewish refugee, told Fox News Digital that she believes the Democratic Party’s position on the war in Gaza will lead to a massive shift in Jewish voters backing Trump.

‘I think the Democratic Party has lost the Jews,’ Steinberg said. ‘I think we’re gone. I think we’re gone. Eighty percent of Jews stayed in Egypt. 80% of Jews supported Obama. We are not voting for the Democrats anymore. We are not. We are done. We are not that stupid. We have broken that trauma cycle. We are done.’

Recent polling in deep-blue New York state suggests that Trump has taken the lead against Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Harris when it comes to Jewish voters, which Steinberg told Fox News Digital is a sentiment she has seen firsthand.

‘More people than I ever thought in my life, Jews have historically voted Democrat … all voted Democrat, they were part of the Democratic Party, they are now voting for Trump, vocally voting for Trump.’ Steinberg said. ‘Thank God, we’ve woken them up.’

Steinberg continued,’ It only took Oct. 7, 12,000 innocent babies, men and women for us to realize the predicament we are in, and we are finally voting for the party that has our back: the Republican Party and President Donald J. Trump.’

Jewish voters have traditionally supported Democrat candidates for decades. According to an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, Jewish voters have on average supported Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 71% to 26% since 1968.

Jewish voters supported Biden over Trump 68% to 30% in 2020, while in 2016 the same group chose Clinton over Trump by a margin of 71% to 26%.

Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee contributed to this report.

Delegates at the Democratic National Convention are set to vote Monday on the Democratic Party’s 2024 policy platform, which includes ‘explicit’ Title IX protections for LGBT students that were just blocked by the Supreme Court. 

The Democratic National Convention released the final 2024 Democratic Party platform Sunday night, after the one created during President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign was eventually scrapped. Vice President Kamala Harris announced her own presidential bid shortly after, generating a need for revisions that would better align with her own policy positions and a new vision for the party. The latest party platform mimics the Biden administration’s attempted rule making on Title IX to widen the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity. 

‘After Friday’s SCOTUS order, the Biden-Harris Title IX rules are in effect in less than 50% of the country — underscoring the flagrant lawlessness of this policy, as well as the deep unpopularity of this issue,’ Nicole Neily, the president and founder of parental rights group Parents Defending Education, told Fox News Digital. ‘Americans agree on relatively little these days, but opposition to progressive gender policies is one of the few issues that transcends racial, political, and socioeconomic lines — so doubling down on this issue is a risky move.’

Matt Sharp, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit that also focuses on parental rights issues, said the decision to include transgender protections in the Democratic Party’s platform ‘flies in the face of growing opinion’ about expanding the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity.

‘I think it’s really concerning to see the DNC platform sort of keep going down this same path that courts time and time again have pushed back on, have not allowed to move forward, and that ultimately the American public is not in favor of,’ Sharp said.

Sharp pointed out how efforts to redefine sex and sexual discrimination go all the way back to President Barack Obama’s administration. Once Trump took office, he rolled back the rule, but then it was put back in place by Biden. 

‘This has been a continuing pattern for several administrations to push this, but not only are the courts rebuffing it, but that the American public themselves are too, and we’re seeing it through more and more courageous female voices standing up against this,’ Sharp said.

Reed D. Rubinstein, senior vice president at America First Legal, the right-wing legal organization founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, called the move to add protections for transgender students under Title IX ‘old news.’

‘The left has fought this reality for well over a decade — it has repeatedly attempted and repeatedly failed to amend Title IX in Congress. Twice, it has attempted to change the law by administrative fiat. To protect girls’ sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms, the Trump administration reversed the Obama administration’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letter that asserted ‘sex’ and ‘[gender identity’ are coextensive],’ Rubinstein told Fox News Digital in a statement.

‘The Trump administration issued a Title IX rule that survived every single left-wing court challenge. Now, the courts have stopped the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to rewrite the statute by regulation. But the Supreme Court, unanimously, has made it clear the word ‘sex’ in Title IX does not mean ‘gender identity,’ but rather, biological sex, male or female.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

In addition to Title IX protections for transgender students, the DNC party platform also contains language that states Democrats will continue ‘to relieve the crippling burden of student debt’ in 2024 — another policy effort under Biden that was rolled back by the Supreme Court. The platform blames Republicans for ‘block[ing] our student debt relief.’

The Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s plans for student debt cancelation last year, arguing the president stepped outside the bounds of his authority when he announced a plan to cancel up to $400 billion in student loans through executive action.

The intelligence community said it has observed ‘increasingly aggressive Iranian activity’ during the 2024 election cycle, involving influence operations targeting the American public and presidential campaigns.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said Monday that Iran ‘seeks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.’ 

‘Iran has furthermore demonstrated a longstanding interest in exploiting societal tensions through various means, including through the use of cyber operations to attempt to gain access to sensitive information related to U.S. elections,’ the agencies said in a joint-statement. ‘In addition to these sustained efforts to complicate the ability of any U.S. administration to pursue a foreign policy at odds with Iran’s interests, the IC has previously reported thatIran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome.’ 

The intelligence community said it has observed ‘increasingly aggressive Iranian activity’ during the 2024 election cycle, specifically involving ‘influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns.’ 

‘This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the IC attributes to Iran,’ they said. 

The FBI has been investigating Iranian cyber hacking attempts against Trump’s presidential campaign, after Politico began receiving internal Trump campaign documents. 

The Trump campaign said the documents were obtained ‘illegally from sources hostile to the United States,’ who ‘intended to interfere in the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process.’ 

Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on Trump’s campaign in June 2024. 

The hack by Iran came ‘after recent reports of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump around the same time as the Butler, PA tragedy.’ 

‘The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,’ Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital. ‘Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.’

But the intelligence community said it is ‘confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties.’ 

‘Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process. It is important to note that this approach is not new,’ they said. ‘Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world.’ 

The agencies stressed that ‘protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign influence or interference is our priority.’ 

‘As the lead for threat response, the FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible,’ they said. ‘We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns.’ 

The intelligence community said it is working closely with its public and private sector partners to ‘share information, bolster security, and identify and disrupt any threats.’ 

‘Just as this activity demonstrates the Iranians’ increased intent to exploit our online platforms in support of their objectives, it also demonstrates the need to increase the resilience of those platforms,’ they said, urging Americans to use strong passwords, official email accounts for official business, updating software, avoiding clicking links or opening attachments from ‘suspicious emails,’ and turning on multi-factor authentication.

The 2024 presidential campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris told Fox News it ‘vigilantly monitors and protects against cyber threats, and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems.’ 

Iran has long been suspected of running hacking campaigns targeting its enemies in the Middle East and beyond. Tehran also has long threatened to retaliate against Trump over the 2020 drone strike he ordered that killed prominent Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

In its report, Microsoft stated that ‘foreign malign influence concerning the 2024 US election started off slowly but has steadily picked up pace over the last six months due initially to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity.’

The analysis continued: ‘Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three U.S. election cycles. Iran’s operations have been notable and distinguishable from Russian campaigns for appearing later in the election season and employing cyberattacks more geared toward election conduct than swaying voters.’

‘Recent activity suggests the Iranian regime — along with the Kremlin — may be equally engaged in election 2024,’ Microsoft concluded.

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio called out Vice President Kamala Harris for her campaign promise to lower prices ‘on day one,’ despite her current influential role in the White House.

‘We have a country that is being failed by its present leadership,’ Vance said. ‘And don’t let anybody gaslight you here, because Kamala Harris is running around the country and saying that on Day One, she wants to bring the cost of goods and the cost of housing under control.’

Vance held a campaign event in Philadelphia on Monday, where he focused on contrasting the Trump-Vance campaign agenda with that of Harris.

‘She says that on Day One, she wants to make groceries and homes more affordable for American citizens. Well, Kamala Harris, where have you been? Because you’ve been vice president for about 1,300 days.’

‘Day One was three and a half years ago. You should have been doing your job then and not promising to do it now,’ Vance added.

While recently on the campaign trail, Harris said that if elected she would bring down food prices, end price gouging and lower housing costs.

But Vance highlighted the current high prices on electricity, food and gas, saying, ‘This is all because of the policies of Kamala Harris.’

‘This is the person who’s promising that she’s going to fix the very problems that she has been creating for 1,300 days, and now she wants the American people to give her a promotion,’ he told attendees. 

Vance focused on oil and energy as he made a pitch to voters in Pennsylvania, a state that will play a crucial role in determining the 2024 election.

‘We are, first of all, going to unleash Pennsylvania energy workers. We are going to drill, baby, drill. Let’s. We’re going to stop buying energy from tinpot dictators all over the world who hate this country,’ Vance said. ‘We’re going to start buying it from our own land, from our own people, from our own workers. And that’s going to start on Day One of the Trump presidency.’

Vance also said that Harris ‘has got quite the running mate,’ referencing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

‘The closest Tim Walz has ever come to combat is when he let rioters burn Minneapolis to the ground a few years ago,’ Vance said. Walz has faced backlash recently regarding the validity of his status and service in the military.

Vance answered questions from local reporters during the campaign event, after saying, ‘It is disgraceful that Kamala Harris pretends to run for the presidency of the United States, but she refuses to stand before the American people without a teleprompter standing between them. Kamala, what are you so afraid of?’

Vance’s event came on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

There are 78 days until Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

But if Americans vote like they did in the last two election cycles, most of them will have already cast a ballot before the big day.

Early voting starts as soon as Sept. 6 for eligible voters, with seven battleground states sending out ballots to at least some voters the same month.

It makes the next few months less a countdown to Election Day, and more the beginning of ‘election season.’

States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military or people with illnesses. 

In some states, almost every voter casts a ballot by mail.

Many states expanded eligibility in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made it riskier to vote in-person.

That year, the Fox News Voter Analysis found that 71% of voters cast their ballots before Election Day, with 30% voting early in-person and 41% voting by mail.

Early voting remained popular in the midterms, with 57% of voters casting a ballot before Election Day.

Elections officials stress that voting early is safe and secure. Recounts, investigations and lawsuits filed after the 2020 election did not reveal evidence of widespread fraud or corruption. 

The difference between ‘early in-person’ and ‘mail’ or ‘absentee’ voting.

There are a few ways to vote before Election Day.

The first is , where a voter casts a regular ballot in-person at a voting center before Election Day.

The second is , where the process and eligibility varies by state.

Eight states vote mostly by mail, including California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. Registered voters receive ballots and send them back.

Most states allow any registered voter to request a mail ballot and send it back. This is also called mail voting, or sometimes absentee voting. Depending on the state, voters can return their ballot by mail, at a drop box, and/or at an office or facility that accepts mail ballots.

In 14 states, voters must have an excuse to vote by mail, ranging from illness, age, work hours or if a voter is out of their home county on Election Day.

States process and tabulate ballots at different times. Some states don’t begin counting ballots until election night, which delays the release of results.

Voting begins on Sept. 6 in North Carolina, with seven more battleground states starting that month

This list of early voting dates is for guidance only. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes and deadlines, go to Vote.gov and your state’s elections website.

The first voters to be sent absentee ballots will be in North Carolina, which begins mailing out ballots for eligible voters on Sept. 6.

Seven more battleground states open up early voting the same month, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada.

September deadlines

In-person early voting in bold.

Sept. 6

North Carolina – Absentee ballots sent to voters

Sept. 16

Pennsylvania – Mail-in ballots sent to voters

Sept. 17

Georgia – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas

Sept. 19

Wisconsin – Absentee ballots sent

Sept. 20

Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
Minnesota, South Dakota – In-person absentee voting begins
Virginia – In-person early voting begins
Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia – Absentee ballots sent

Sept. 21

Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
Indiana, New Mexico – Absentee ballots sent
Maryland, New Jersey – Mail-in ballots sent

Sept. 23

Mississippi – In-person absentee voting begins & absentee ballots sent
Oregon, Vermont – Absentee ballots sent

Sept. 26

Illinois – In-person early voting begins 
Michigan – Absentee ballots sent
Florida, Nevada – Mail-in ballots sent
North Dakota – Absentee & mail-in ballots sent

Sept. 30

Nebraska – Mail-in ballots sent

Oct. 4

Connecticut – Absentee ballots sent

Oct. 6

Michigan – In-person early voting begins 
Maine – In-person absentee voting begins & mail ballots sent
California – In-person absentee voting begins & mail ballots sent
Montana – In-person absentee voting begins
Nebraska – In-person early voting begins 
Georgia – Absentee ballots sent
Massachusetts – Mail-in ballots sent

Oct. 8

California – Ballot drop-offs open
New Mexico, Ohio – In-person absentee voting begins
Indiana – In-person early voting begins
Wyoming – In-person absentee voting begins & absentee ballots sent

Oct. 9

Arizona – In-person early voting begins & mail ballots sent

Oct. 11

Colorado – Mail-in ballots sent
Arkansas, Alaska – Absentee ballots sent

Oct. 15

Georgia – In-person early voting begins
Utah – Mail-in ballots sent

Oct. 16

Rhode Island, Kansas, Tennessee – In-person early voting begins
Iowa – In-person absentee voting begins
Oregon, Nevada – Mail-in ballots sent

Oct. 17

North Carolina – In-person early voting begins 

Oct. 18

Washington, Louisiana – In-person early voting begins
Hawaii – Mail-in ballots sent

Oct. 19

Nevada, Massachusetts – In-person early voting begins 
Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas – In-person early voting begins 
Colorado – Ballot drop-offs open

Oct. 22

Hawaii, Utah – In-person early voting begins 
Missouri, Wisconsin – In-person absentee voting begins

Oct. 23

West Virginia – In-person early voting begins

Oct. 24

Maryland – In-person early voting begins

Oct. 25

Delaware – In-person early voting begins

Oct. 26

Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, New York – In-person early voting begins 

Oct. 30

Oklahoma – In-person early voting begins 

Oct. 31

Kentucky – In-person absentee voting begins

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv in Israel on Sunday as he begins a Middle East tour with hopes of intensifying diplomatic pressure for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza this week.

The trip marks Blinken’s 10th time visiting the region since October, when the war between the terrorist organization and Israel began.

The secretary is expected to meet with senior Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday, a senior State Department official said.

After his visit to Israel, Blinken will travel to Egypt to continue his tour.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on the way to Tel Aviv that talks to strike a deal for a cease-fire and release of hostages held in Gaza were at an ‘inflection point,’ adding that Blinken would be stressing to all parties the importance of getting this deal locked in.

‘We think this is a critical time,’ the official said.

‘The secretary is going to use this trip, starting with Israel, to just continue to stress the importance of getting this done,’ the official added. ‘I think it is apparent that a deal would not only be in the interest of the Israeli people but would also help alleviate some of the suffering in Gaza.’

Qatar, the U.S. and Egypt are mediating the discussions, though none have been able to get Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement after months of on-off negotiations.

Netanyahu’s office released a statement on Sunday, saying serial leakers are harming the ability to advance a deal.

‘They claimed for months that Hamas would never agree to give in on ending the war as a condition for a deal, and proposed giving in to Hamas’s demand,’ the statement read. ‘They were wrong then – and they are also wrong today. The Prime Minister has strongly insisted on this fundamental demand, which is vital to achieving the goals of the war, and Hamas changed its position.’

The prime minister’s office said Netanyahu continues to insist that Israeli forces remain on a border strip between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, to prevent weapons from being smuggled into Gaza.

‘The Prime Minister will continue to work on advancing a deal that will maximize the number of living hostages and which will enable the achieving of all of the war objectives,’ the office added.

Fox News’ Yonat Friling and Reuters contributed to this report.