Senate Democrats expressed anxiety over recent polls showing Donald Trump leading or tied with Hillary Clinton in key battleground states during a private meeting with the former secretary of state at the Capitol on Thursday.
A Democratic senator who attended the meeting said that some lawmakers were "freaked out" while reading poll numbers that showed Trump closing in on Clinton’s previously wide lead.
"They were looking down at the polls on Real Clear Politics and asking why it was so close," the unidentified senator told the Hill.
Clinton brushed aside the concerns, saying that "people are unhappy and they don’t trust institutions," the senator said.
New polls from swing states released this week by Quinnipiac University showed Trump leading Clinton 42 percent to 39 percent in Florida. Clinton had an 8-point lead in the poll last month.
The presumptive GOP nominee was also ahead of Clinton in Pennsylvania while tying her in Ohio. The three states are critical in the November election.
"There was concern raised about the race because we know it’s going to be a close race," the senator said.
Clinton saw her poll numbers bruised after FBI Director James Comey condemned her and her former State Department aides for being "extremely careless" in transmitting classified information over a private email server.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday found that a majority of Americans rejected Comey’s decision not to recommend the Justice Department press criminal charges against Clinton.
Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said Democrats in the meeting acknowledged the election would be closer than initially projected.
"It wasn’t just a meeting where everyone said, ‘Everything is fine, don’t worry about it,’" Casey told the Hill. "We know this is going to be a tough election. We see it all around us, and we have to be prepared for a close election."