As of Friday, the Iowa Straw Poll for the 2016 cycle is no more.
The Iowa Republican Party’s State Central Committee on Friday voted to kill the informal poll, which had previously been planned for August 8. The final vote by the committee on Friday was unanimous.
“I’ve said since December that we would only hold a straw poll if the candidates wanted one, and this year, that is just not the case,” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement after the vote. “For that reason I called a special meeting to update the State Central Committee, which then voted unanimously this morning to cancel the event.”
The cancellation follows three of the top candidates in the 2016 GOP field, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), choosing not spend money to compete in the poll, which was scheduled for Aug. 8.
Other candidates, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, had also tried to avoid questions on plans to attend the straw poll, the Des Moines Register noted.
In recent years, the poll has come under criticism for failing to consistently predict the eventual Republican nominee or the winner of the Iowa caucuses, despite its high-profile status within the early primary states. In the 2012 cycle, then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) won the poll, and in the 2008 cycle, Mitt Romney won it. Neither Bachmann nor Romney won the nomination or the Iowa caucus in the cycles they won the straw poll. In the 2000 cycle, Texas Gov. George W. Bush won the straw poll, the caucus, and cruised on to the nomination.
“This step, while extremely distasteful for those of us who love the straw poll, is necessary to strengthen our First in the Nation status and ensure our future nominee has the best chance possible to take back the White House in 2016,” Kaufmann continued.
it would seem that based in the current crop of candidates that the best chance to ‘take back’ the White House is no chance…
‘if it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all’
Well…I guess when everyone’s pointing out that it’s the most pointless thing in the universe, it’s a good idea to just get rid of it all together.
I amend that, there’s more things which are more useless, but still…this thing has never predicted the President…in fact, I think it has a better track record of showing who will drop out first.
Iowa
Where wannabes go to confirm their loser-ness.
But what about the tradition that is being ended here which had made Michelle Backmann a household joke? Doesn’t someone in the clown car faction of the Republican Party haveto preserve this worthless part of history?
The TeaParty can blame Jeb Bush for ruining their fun. He didn’t think his time was best served by wasting a few weeks in a state that had too few electoral votes…and way too many farmers. . It’s not as if the rest of us haven’t blamed one or another Bush for destroying something, right?
“Read my lips, no new taxes,” Brownback or Pappy Bush?
Surely former Presidents Pat Robertson and Michelle Bachman are disappointed by this development.