Episode 1

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Published on:

15th Jan 2024

1: No Takes Given

In our inaugural episode released on Iowa's GOP Caucus day, January 15, 2024, host Farrah Bostic (In the Demo Podcast, The Difference Engine) and pal Paul Soldera (Equation Research), set the table for what Cross Tabs is all about: demystifying what polls are and how they work.


Mentioned links:

Jill Lepore's "Politics and the New Machine" [The New Yorker]

Jill Lepore's "The Problems Inherent in Political Polling" [The New Yorker]

What Was Nate Silver's Data Revolution? [The New Yorker]

"Polls' Representative Samples Often Merit Skepticism" [Wall Street Journal]

"How Public Polling Has Changed in the 21st Century" [Pew Research Center]

All in with Chris Hayes, December 21, 2023 [MSNBC]

NY Times/Siena College Poll, December 2023 [New York Times]

"From Which River to Which Sea? College Students Don't Know, Yet They Agree With the Slogan" [Wall Street Journal]

YouGov Poll Links(December 2023):

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/12/20/edc6d/1

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/12/20/edc6d/3

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/12/20/edc6d/2

Suffolk University Iowa Poll (January 2024)

"Ann Selzer Is The Best Pollster In Politics" [FiveThirtyEight]

AAPOR Analysis of the 2016 Campaign [AAPOR]

"Trump lost, but he won millions of new voters. Where did they come from?" [Washington Post]

The Focus Group Podcast [The Bulwark]



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About the Podcast

Cross Tabs
People • Data • Power
Our world is governed by numbers — surveys, polling, algorithms, and data.

On Cross Tabs, we bring you the stories behind these numbers. This podcast is your introduction to the people, perspectives, and agendas that shape our reality, and call it “public opinion”.

We invite experts to discuss pressing issues and walk us through their methods. You’ll hear about the issues that matter from some of the brightest thinkers in policy and politics, tech and business.

Join us and you’ll learn about how polling works — or doesn’t work — and how research can be manipulated to advance a political agenda. Discover the history of topics in the news and hear insights on culture and society.

And learn what’s really at risk in the race to influence and optimize, well, everything.

The show is hosted by Farrah Bostic, founder of The Difference Engine, where she works as a qualitative researcher and strategist working outside The Beltway to understand what drives business leaders, experts, and people like you so we can all make better decisions.