The Iowa Straw Poll is dead

The Iowa Straw Poll is dead, leaving a heavier burden on winnowing an oversized GOP presidential field on Iowans who will cast the nation's first votes in February in the caucuses.

The governing board for the Republican Party of Iowa voted unanimously Friday to cancel the straw poll, a milestone on the path to the White House that had passed the strategic tipping point. It was no longer a political risk for presidential campaigns to walk away from the straw poll, and too many of the 2016 contenders had opted to skip it for it to survive.

"We set the table and they didn't come to dinner," Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann told The Des Moines Register and Radio Iowa Friday morning.

There were three reasons the Iowa GOP board decided to not go forward with the Aug. 8 event in Boone, Kaufmann said. There was too little interest from the presidential contenders; the fundraiser likely wouldn't have made enough money to break even; and there were concerns about jeopardizing Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses — Iowa party officials were getting blowback from national influencers for appearing to be bullying contenders to compete.

"Am I disappointed? Yes," Kaufmann said. "But I don't say this really with any animus toward the candidates. They made decisions that were good for their campaign. I would much rather spend my time highlighting Hillary's dysfunctionality as a potential president than trying to gain a particular candidate by backing them into a corner and forcing them into Boone."

For GOP activists in Iowa, the summertime political festival was a beloved tradition that dated to 1979. The daylong festival showcased the party's presidential candidates and to brought Iowa Republicans together for food, music and field-winnowing. But its fate rested in the hands of the presidential campaigns, who drove attendance by spending resources to haul in their supporters. Four years ago, the party sold about 23,000 tickets, and about 18,000 were purchased by the campaigns.

Several key 2016 contenders — Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee — had decided against dishing out the big bucks that it can take to win the straw poll. Party officials needed at least one legitimate player to participate, but the Iowa frontrunner, Scott Walker, declined to commit or even signal any interest.

Ample cover for ditching the straw poll was delivered by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who had declared at the end of the 2012 presidential election that it had "outlived its usefulness." And a recent Iowa Poll showed that while a slight majority of likely GOP caucusgoers thought it was important for presidential candidates to participate in the straw poll, almost as many dismissed it as unimportant.

Back in January, the Iowa GOP board unanimously to proceed with the event.

"Was it a mistake? I don't think so," Kaufmann said Friday. "It was an overwhelming 'yes' to have it."

Although Branstad had questioned the wisdom of continuing the straw poll, activists around Iowa pushed for its survival. Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King was one of the strongest advocates.

In the last few weeks, at least 10 people with Iowa influence had launched a "full-court press" to persuade the presidential contenders to sign up for the straw poll. Branstad was among them and it wasn't just "a wink and a nod" — the governor was truly advocating for the straw poll, Kaufmann said.

"But there is a point when advocacy becomes pushy or even bullying and that does not bode well for our first-in-the-nation status," Kaufmann said.

The Iowa GOP board had decided to move the straw poll from its historic home in Ames to the Central Iowa Expo in rural Boone. The Boone location would have been beautiful, Kaufmann said. "Not one single candidate told me that Boone was a bad move," he said. "In fact more said it was a good move."

Some candidates had said they might show up at the straw poll grounds just to give a speech, but wouldn't spend money trying to win the straw poll. That meant the fundraiser would likely have struggled to break even, much less garnered hundreds of thousands for the party as it has in the past.

Still, the party will have enough money to carry out the Iowa caucuses in a strong way, even though "the previous regime put us in a heck of a position" financially," he said, referring to the crew of Ron Paul/Rand Paul backers who took control of party headquarters after the last caucuses. Because party officials had revamped the rules for the straw poll to make it cheaper for presidential contenders to compete, it wasn't going to be a big moneymaker for the party anyway, Kaufmann said.

Friday's vote, conducted by conference call in a session closed to the public, was unanimous. Seventeen members of the State Central Committee wanted to cancel the straw poll. One member, Tamara Scott, abstained. Although the debate lasted an hour and 15 minutes, it wasn't contentious, Kaufmann said. Reporters could hear his raised voice upstairs, but he was simply speaking loudly for the benefit of everyone on the conference call, he said.