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.
Two days before the election, Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost Michigan's Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed his Republican opponent. A month earlier, Farrah sat down with Mike Podhorzer — former political director of the AFL-CIO and author of the Weekend Reading newsletter — for a conversation about the question that move raises: who is a party actually accountable to? Mike argues that parties are coalitions of the organized interests that back them in primaries, that Democrats stopped doing politics and started treating voters as customers, and that the problem with AI, the economy and much else isn't the thing itself but who controls it. Plus: what Zohran Mamdani understands about picket lines, why winning an election isn't the same as having power, and why Mike thinks that if we think of 2008 as analogous to 1932, Herbert Hoover won.
Guest
Mike Podhorzer is the former political director of the AFL-CIO and a former senior adviser to its president. He founded the Analyst Institute and the Research Collaborative, was a longtime co-chair of Catalist, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and writes Weekend Reading, a newsletter on politics, economics and democratic crises that began in 2017 as an off-the-record email to election practitioners.
Weekend Reading: https://weekendreading.net (https://weekendreading.net)
Substack: @michaelpodhorzer (https://substack.com/@michaelpodhorzer)
Notable quotes
"They are there because they passed the job interview." — Mike Podhorzer, on members of Congress
"Economic power is political power, and they have almost all of it, and we have almost none of it." — Mike Podhorzer
"Think of the Congress as becoming the most genius customer service center for capitalism." — Mike Podhorzer
Referenced in this episode
Rep. Haley Stevens's endorsement of Mike Rogers in Michigan's Senate race (PBS NewsHour (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrat-haley-stevens-endorses-gops-mike-rogers-in-michigan-senate-race-2-days-before-election))
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
"AI as normal technology" (Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor)
Zohran Mamdani's Knicks championship speech (June 18, 2026), and the whole celebration can be watched again here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ0gQMnpxxo).
Rebecca Traister's New York (New York magazine reporting) magazine reporting (New York magazine reporting) on the Maine Senate race and Troy Jackson's campaign
Just Evil Enough (https://justevilenough.com/) by Alistair Croll and Emily Ross
Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton) on Péter Magyar's efforts to dismantle Orbán's system in Hungary — see her Journal of Democracy essay "Can Péter Magyar Restore Hungary's Democracy?"
Stay in Touch
📬 Subscribe to our newsletter at crosstabspodcast.com (https://crosstabspodcast.com/) for new episodes, insights, and behind-the-scenes content.
📹 Watch video episodes on YouTube @CrosstabsPodcast (https://www.youtube.com/@crosstabspodcast)
💬 Follow us on BlueSky: @crosstabspod.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/crosstabspodcast.bsky.social) and @farrahbostic.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/farrahbostic.bsky.social)
📍 Produced by The Difference Engine (https://www.thedifferenceengine.co/)
📨 You can also email me directly at farrah@crosstabspodcast.com (mailto:farrah@crosstabspodcast.com)
15 Oct 2026
Out of Pocket, with Ashley Kirzinger of KFF
With the elections a little over 2 weeks away, "affordability" is everywhere — and KFF's Ashley Kirzinger thinks a big share of it is about health care. Ashley, KFF's director of survey methodology, joins Farrah to talk about how KFF reaches people most polls miss, why health costs now tie gas prices as Americans' top household worry, and how majorities of Republicans backed extending the ACA tax credits right up until the issue turned partisan. Plus: why asking voters to choose between "the economy" and "health care" may be a false choice, and why about three in ten voters trust neither party to bring costs down.
Guest
Ashley Kirzinger is director of survey methodology and associate director of KFF's Public Opinion and Survey Research Program, where she helps direct KFF's polling work. She holds a Ph.D. from LSU's Manship School and lives in Portland, Maine.
KFF Public Opinion & Survey Research team: https://www.kff.org/team/public-opinion-survey-research/ (https://www.kff.org/team/public-opinion-survey-research/)
Bluesky: @ashleykirzinger.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/ashleykirzinger.bsky.social)
Notable quotes
"When we put out a poll and if Democratic and Republican lawmakers are both mad at us, I feel like that's when we're doing our job right." — Ashley Kirzinger
"They may have said the economy and they mean health costs, and they may say healthcare and they mean health costs." — Ashley Kirzinger
"You have to take care of your health, but you can't afford to take care of your health." — Ashley Kirzinger
Referenced in this episode
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs and the Midterms (https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/kff-health-tracking-poll-health-care-costs-and-the-midterms/) (April 2026) — the worry chart, the party-trust chart, the impact-on-voting chart, and the "most-wanted change" question
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs, Expiring ACA Tax Credits, and the 2026 Midterms (https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/kff-health-tracking-poll-health-care-costs-expiring-aca-tax-credits-and-the-2026-midterms/) (January 2026)
Tracking the Public's Views on the ACA (https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/the-publics-views-on-the-aca-tracker/) — the long-run favorability chart Farrah and Ashley walk through
KFF/Washington Post Trans Survey (https://www.kff.org/other-health/trans-people-in-the-u-s-identities-demographics-and-wellbeing/) — 515 trans adults from three probability-based panels
KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants (https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/immigrants-overwhelmingly-say-they-and-their-children-are-better-off-in-the-us-but-many-also-report-substantial-discrimination-and-challenges-a-new-kff-los-angeles-times-survey-reveals/) — 3,358 immigrant adults, 10 languages
Annie Lowrey's writing on the "time tax (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-time-tax-annie-lowrey?variant=43996208070690)" of public services
Johnny Harris' video about democracy, “I don’t get democracy” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7LvhSQ5Te4)
Stay in Touch
📬 Subscribe to our newsletter at crosstabspodcast.com (https://crosstabspodcast.com/) for new episodes, insights, and behind-the-scenes content.
📹 Watch video episodes on YouTube @CrosstabsPodcast (https://www.youtube.com/@crosstabspodcast)
💬 Follow us on BlueSky: @crosstabspod.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/crosstabspodcast.bsky.social) and @farrahbostic.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/farrahbostic.bsky.social)
📍 Produced by The Difference Engine (https://www.thedifferenceengine.co/)
📨 You can also email me directly at farrah@crosstabspodcast.com (mailto:farrah@crosstabspodcast.com)
1 Oct 2026
The Cloud Isn't Up In the Cloud, with Zoe Padgett from SurveyMonkey
Zoe Padgett, who runs public opinion research on SurveyMonkey's survey science team, joins Farrah to walk through three years of tracking data on how Americans actually feel about AI — not the LinkedIn-hype version. They dig into an unusual generational "crisscross" (Gen Z's trust in AI dropped from 2023 to 2026 while every older generation's rose), why brands selling AI tools are still just selling the category itself rather than differentiating, and what happens to the research pipeline when AI quietly absorbs the tasks junior researchers used to cut their teeth on. The conversation ends on data centers — the physical, local, increasingly contentious infrastructure behind all of it — and the way it is scrambling normal demographic and political coalitions.
Guest
Zoe Padgett is a public opinion researcher on SurveyMonkey's survey science team. She previously worked on federal survey design and analysis at the American Institutes for Research, ICF, and the Department of Education and holds a Master's in Survey Methodology from the University of Maryland.
Resources
SurveyMonkey's latest AI & Jobs Survey Report (https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/cnbc-ai-work-survey-august-2026/)
SurveyMonkey Research: AI Sentiment Study (https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/surveymonkey-research-ai-sentiment-study/). The quarterly AI tracker, including the data-center findings (Sam Gutierrez, July 2026).
CNBC|SurveyMonkey Quarterly AI & Jobs Survey, Q2 2026 (https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/cnbc-ai-work-survey-may-2026/)
In AI We Trust (https://offers.hubspot.com/ai-report-surveymonkey) (HubSpot × SurveyMonkey, 2025)
Stay in Touch
📬 Subscribe to our newsletter at crosstabspodcast.com (https://crosstabspodcast.com/) for new episodes, insights, and behind-the-scenes content.
📹 Watch video episodes on YouTube @CrosstabsPodcast (https://www.youtube.com/@crosstabspodcast)
💬 Follow us on BlueSky: @crosstabspod.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/crosstabspodcast.bsky.social) and @farrahbostic.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/farrahbostic.bsky.social)
📍 Produced by The Difference Engine (https://www.thedifferenceengine.co/)
📨 You can also email me directly at farrah@crosstabspodcast.com (mailto:farrah@crosstabspodcast.com)
Who has been a guest on Cross Tabs
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Hannah Hartig
Scott Keeter
Anat Shenker-Osorio
Ariel Edwards-Levy
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
1,619
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
10 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 68 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
80
Social presence
0
YouTube
68
Engagement
71
Contact Cross Tabs
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