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Short video at link. There is no doubt that Democrats are inching closer and closer to the panic button. Recent polls have Republican nominee Donald Trump leading in the majority of battle ground states and in overall national polls. Just after Trump clarified his views on Barack Obama's birthplace, Senate minority leader Harry Reid held an interview on CNN scolding Trump and the recent polls while saying that Hillary is "doing a good job." "I don't believe your silliness with your $500 polls, they're not true," he said.

Monday on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” ABC political commentator Cokie Roberts offered her thoughts on the apparent health issues regarding Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and the how the party could be looking to handle things if a replacement is needed for Clinton. According to Roberts, there was already conversation within the party about such a possibility. “The fact that it comes now when the polls are tightening and Democrats are already saying that Hillary was the only candidate who could not beat Trump and it is taking her off of the campaign trail, canceling her trip to California – it...

NEW YORK — With Election Day less than two months away, Democrats are increasingly worried that Hillary Clinton has not built a formidable lead against Donald Trump despite his historic weaknesses as a national party candidate. Even the Democratic nominee’s advisers acknowledge that she must make changes, and quickly. Clinton leads Trump by a mere three percentage points, having fallen from her high of nine points in August, according to the latest Real Clear Politics average. That tightening has frustrated many Clinton allies and operatives, who are astonished that she isn’t running away with this race given Trump’s deep unpopularity...

Democratic senators, anxious over Hillary Clinton’s inability to pull away from Donald Trump, have some advice for their nominee: Be more open, show your soul, focus on the economy and talk about blue-collar jobs. Recent polls show Trump within striking distance of Clinton, defying predictions in Washington that he is doomed in November. Trump’s ability to stay competitive while running an unconventional campaign has underscored what Democratic lawmakers see as the need for Clinton to improve in certain areas. These lawmakers, who served with Clinton in Congress and have known her for years, say her public persona is too guarded....

WASHINGTON — When a handful of liberal advocacy organizations convened a series of focus groups with young black voters last month, the assessments of Donald J. Trump were predictably unsparing. But when the participants were asked about Hillary Clinton, their appraisals were just as blunt and nearly as biting. “What am I supposed to do if I don’t like him and I don’t trust her?” a millennial black woman in Ohio asked. “Choose between being stabbed and being shot? No way!” “She was part of the whole problem that started sending blacks to jail,” a young black man, also from...

I've never seen them like this. Trump is their worst nightmare and it's amazing

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: New York Times: "Think Hillary Clinton Will Win in a Landslide? Don't Bet on It." So we've got this new poll from Florida Atlantic University, Trump up two, 43 to 41 over Hillary in Florida. We've got a Reuters poll that shows Hillary up 12 nationally, but remember in that poll they don't count the undecideds. Now, in all these battleground states, the narrative is that Trump is losing. Who cares about the national polls, they say, in these battleground states, states Trump has to win, you can barely see him anymore. He's in the rearview mirror...

Sure seems like they're afraid. One of the most telling things about the last few days has been the severity of the collective left-wing freak-out. When Donald Trump made his comments about Russian hackers releasing Hillary’s now-destroyed “personal” correspondence, the reaction was swift, vitriolic, and way, way over the top. But why? If their candidate (who they claim is consistently honest and trustworthy) is telling the truth, the 30,000 messages would only serve to prove what she’s been claiming all along.

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats should be worried. Why? Because Donald Trump delivered Thursday night and did what he needed to do. No, he didn’t deliver a speech with great oratorical flourish. No, he didn’t broaden the base of the party significantly though he did speak about minorities and the LGBTQ community in ways that he hadn’t done before. What Trump did, and he did it very well, was to raise the stakes of the election and define it in his own terms. Law and order, crime in the streets, and terror. He managed to make the argument, compellingly, that...

Democratic Party activists are conflicted over whether Hillary Clinton can take on Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in the general election, with some fearing she provides too much ammunition for the flamboyant businessman's style of attack. While Mr. Trump is leading the national polls and calling the shots in what's become a circuslike GOP primary season, Mrs. Clinton tops a sedentary Democratic race with two other opponents respectfully nipping at her without doing much damage -- and party stalwarts are happy to have it that way. "I hear a lot of people saying, 'You know, I've watched the Democratic debates...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: They are worried. The Democrat Party is worried. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. They are worried. Hillary Clinton's wearing a wig? We always knew she was fake, phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller. Now the big news is Hillary's wigs? By the way, who was first to observe that she might have been wearing wigs and pointing it out? That was me, your guiding light El Rushbo, weeks ago. Her hair didn't look natural. But when you know how to look at Hillary, it's not hard to figure out, find out she is wearing...

Hillary Clinton allies are focusing on four potential Republican challengers for the White House: Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and Scott Walker.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has been near the top of the list of the most vulnerable senators facing reelection since day one of the 2014 election cycle. But notable developments in recent weeks suggest her seat is increasingly at risk of falling into Republican hands. Republican groups have blitzed Landrieu over the airwaves while she has gotten limited cover from Democratic allies; polls show she is locked in a close race against Rep. Bill Cassidy (R); and now, Landrieu is reserving $2.6 million in airtime between April and June, an apparent recognition that the cascade of opposition ads has forced...

Democrats are facing their toughest Michigan Senate fight in two decades. A sour national political climate, a little-known candidate and big spending by conservative outside groups have given Republicans a real shot at winning an open seat and boosted their chances at seizing Senate control. Republicans had all but written off the Democratic-leaning state last summer after they failed to recruit either Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) or Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to run, leaving them with former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R) as their nominee. But President Obama’s dismal poll numbers, millions spent by conservative groups and...

A month after emerging from a government shutdown at the top of their game, many Democrats in Congress newly worried about the party's re-election prospects are for the first time distancing themselves from President Barack Obama after the disastrous rollout of his health care overhaul. At issue, said several Obama allies, is a loss of trust in the president after only 106,000 people — instead of an anticipated half million — were able to buy insurance coverage the first month of the new "Obamacare" web sites. In addition, some 4.2 million Americans received notices from insurers that policies Obama had...

But Republicans are pledging to stay focused on ObamaCare, which they see as symbolic of a greater problem with Democrats’ governing vision and abilities.Democrats are scrambling to regain control of the national political narrative as problems with ObamaCare are threatening to undo all of the advantage they gained following the government shutdown, jeopardizing their chances in 2014. House Democrats outlined plans to refocus attention on the potential for another showdown over the federal budget in January — when the current government funding measure is set to run out — in a memo issued at a caucus meeting Wednesday by...

The Affordable Care Act is casting a shadow over Democrats’ chances in Senate battleground states, putting pressure on vulnerable Senate Democrats to distance themselves from the law’s clumsy rollout. Five vulnerable Democratic incumbents who this week called for extending the law’s enrollment period and delaying penalties for not signing up on time come from states where voters hold unfavorable views of the law. Some Democratic strategists, however, argue the issue is not as potent as Republicans think and predict it could boomerang on conservatives who have pushed for a full repeal of the law without offering detailed proposals to replace...

Democratic strategist James Carville lavished praise on freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has quickly become one of the Senate's most polarizing new members. Echoing former Sen. Jim DeMint on ABC's "This Week," Carville cheered Cruz for not being afraid to take on his own party so soon into his Senate career. "I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I've seen in the last 30 years," Carville said. "I further think that he's going to run for president and he is going to create something. I'm not sitting here saying he's going to win, and I...

It's more than President Barack Obama's lackluster debate performance that has some Democrats on edge a month from Election Day. Party loyalists, in Washington and in battleground states, are fretting that Obama's campaign has been slow to rebound after Republican Mitt Romney's commanding debate. They're worried that the Democratic ticket isn't aggressive enough in blocking Romney's post-debate pivot to the political center. And they fear Romney's new effort to show a softer side gives the Republican nominee an opening with female voters, who are crucial to the president's re-election prospects...

NBC's Chuck Todd reports: "I'm hearing chatter that there's maybe some people from the last campaign that's maybe going to get a little more involved," said Todd.