Jeb Bush to skip Iowa Straw Poll

No Iowa Straw Poll for Jeb Bush.

The likely Republican presidential candidate will instead attend a competing event, the RedState Gathering in Atlanta, the day of the Iowa event, GOP sources in Iowa told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday. A spokesman for Bush confirmed the report.

Bush, a former Florida governor, is the first well-known Republican in the 2016 presidential field to officially opt out of the straw poll, a nationally renowned event that has drawn significant criticism over the years.

The Republican Party of Iowa, which hosts the Iowa Straw Poll, has been working to shore up the event's reputation and lure candidates by addressing some of the most prevalent complaints. Last week, Iowa GOP officials announced they'll provide free tent space and utilities for the campaigns. The straw poll has been bashed as having outsized importance, even to the point of having losing candidates drop out of the race. Campaigns sometimes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at the straw poll as a sort of dry run for the Iowa caucuses.

But for the GOP presidential contenders, whether to compete in the straw poll is more of a risk-reward analysis. For those who compete, the aim is to do better than expected. This cycle, some contenders have said, they intend to focus instead on the caucuses, which will take place in precincts across the state on Feb. 1.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann told the Register: "We hope Governor Bush rethinks his decision and realizes that grass-roots will only grow in Iowa if he waters them. The RedState Gathering is a four-day event, and other candidates have already indicated that they will be attending both. We don't buy this excuse and neither will Iowans."

Bush for months has been considered a likely abstainer. His rivals tried to raise expectations for him, arguing he had a recipe for a strong showing because he hired top strategists and because Iowa has a long-standing Bush network that should benefit him. Bush's brother won the straw poll in 1999 and his father won it in 1979

But polling has shown that Iowa isn't exactly friendly territory for Bush. In a Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll from late January, 43 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers rated Bush as mostly or very unfavorable, the second worst after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

More recently, Bush ranked in seventh place out of 14 GOP contenders tested in a April 25-May 4 Quinnipiac University poll. When Quinnipiac asked likely GOP caucusgoers whether there is any candidate they would definitely not support, 25 percent named Bush. Bush was at the top of that negative list.

Bush will be in Iowa this weekend for several events, including a town hall meeting in Dubuque, fundraisers for Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and the Republican Party of Iowa's Lincoln Dinner, a big fundraiser that has attracted a total of 11 presidential contenders.

Late Monday, the founder of RedState, Erick Erickson, announced on his blog that Bush, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker would speak during the four-day RedState Gathering Aug. 6-9. The Register was first to report that Bush will address the GOP activists in Georgia on Aug. 8, the same day as the Iowa Straw Poll.

South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is at the bottom of polling in Iowa, will sit out the straw poll, too, he told Radio Iowa in March. To help Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul do well in the straw poll, a Minnesota GOP aide said he's leaving his Minnesota job to move to Iowa, the Star-Tribune reported Tuesday. But an aide for Paul told the Register Paul is undecided about straw poll participation. Others unwilling to commit Tuesday: Walker, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and others.

So far, none of the presidential contenders have committed to attending the straw poll, but Iowa GOP officials won't send out the formal invitations for a couple more weeks. Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has said he plans to participate, and his campaign aides say they will review the new rules for the event before officially RSVP'ing.

Republican Party of Iowa officials have said they intend to rally such a big audience of Iowans that the presidential contenders feel pressure to attend. Iowans who buy tickets before May 18 get a $5 discount on the $30 entry fee plus premium parking.

Who competes in the event, which will take place at the Central Iowa Expo in rural Boone, is about gamesmanship. All it will take is for one candidate to jump in who's expected to stay out, or vice versa, to change the dynamics. Some candidates will likely wait as long as possible to reveal their plans.

David Kochel, who will be Bush's campaign manager if he decides to run for president, was among the Iowans who agreed with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad when he said in November 2012 that the straw poll had outlived its usefulness.

Kochel told the Register in January this year that the unscientific poll is a meaningless exercise because it "artificially drives candidates from the race by forcing them to spend unnecessary resources"; gives other states more ammunition to criticize the caucuses, Iowa's premier event; and, with Michele Bachmann's win in 2011, proved it's no longer predictive of what happens in the caucuses just a few months later.

"It has become completely optional for candidates — each of the last two nominees of our party chose not to participate in the straw poll in the cycle in which they were nominated," Kochel said in January.