FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver sets us worrywarts straight

[box_in_the_box]

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has been getting a bit testy lately, which I suspect is reflective of the types of e-mails he's been receiving recently.

Yesterday, he took the time to ease Obama supporters' fears surrounding Pennsylvania:

Comments

[skankattack]

538 has McCain's chance of winning up 3 percent, which makes me nervous, but I'll be nervous no matter what just because Obama winning seems too good to be true.

[obnoxicant]

I love how that chance of winning is 6.3% and we're still nervous, haha.

I know what you mean, though. I'm not used to this country as a whole agreeing with me.

[cookie_nut]

Not gonna lie, I freaked out at the percentage jump, too. It's sad that doesn't even have a ten percent chance and we're freaking out.

[ashavah]

New poll update, and it's gone back down!

[obnoxicant]

Haha, yeah, thank god for that, because there's that article on the front page of Yahoo saying that McCain has a bigger chance than most think.

One more day of this, can you believe it?

[ashavah]

I think this whole community is about to go nuts from the pent-up tension.

[paley]

LOL, I think it is a sign of how paranoid we all are that we are stressing when McCain's chances go from like 3% to 6%! He has single digit chances of winning!

[xdawnfirex]

Funny story about this:

My mother, a lifelong Republican, has been following the 538 updates with me. She called me from work today to find out what the new numbers were and when I told her about the 3% - 6% jump, she said she was "getting scared".

Yes. My MOTHER is freaking out right along with all of us. She has successfully become a Democrat.

[dobadthings3]

please give your mother a huge hug for me. that is all :D

[ohhhmandy]

lol i got nervous when i saw that too

[dinosaur]

It will probably go down again with new polls coming out tonight.