In 2010, he was the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress from Illinois's 9th congressional district, losing to incumbent Democrat Jan Schakowsky.
[4] Pollak was politically liberal in his early life, active in groups that he later described as "the forebears of today's ANTIFA or Occupy movement".
[5] His political views began to shift toward the right after several experiences as a student in South Africa, which he described as waking him up "from a left-wing worldview".
[5] Pollak attended Harvard College, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1999, with a joint degree in Social Studies and Environmental Science & Public Policy (ESPP).
[4] He then attended the University of Cape Town on a Rotary Scholarship, and earned a master's degree in Jewish Studies in 2006.
Fields and fellow editor Ben Shapiro resigned over the incident, and questioned the site's support of Trump.
[17] Pollak's first book,[18] The Kasrils Affair: Jews and Minority Politics in the New South Africa (Double Storey, 2009), is based on his master's thesis, and uses debates involving the Jewish community, particularly Ronnie Kasrils, as a window onto minority politics in general in post-apartheid South Africa.
Pollak's third book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths The Left Can't Handle,[20] was released in 2016.