The Tea Party didn't care about any of the polling, and they replaced about 1,000 incumbent Republicans who were moderates with right-wingers. They were able to get their vision of politics through. And I think more people in the US share my understanding of politics - more redistributive, more just, less punitive - and the Democrats have been doing a great job of telling us to shut up, listen to the polls and don't challenge existing incumbents.

Political scientist Susan Kang explains how a technocratic over-reliance on political polling blinds politicians, the media and citizens alike to the possibilities of political and social progress, then updates us on a local fight against NY state politicians positioning themselves as progressives while blocking single payer and reproducive rights policies.

Susan wrote the article What Nate Missed in the latest issue of Jacobin.