If Republican party officials decide to scrap the Iowa straw poll, as Gov. Terry Branstad (R) has suggested, a nonprofit evangelical conservative group is ready to fill in the gap, the Des Moines Register reports.
“Branstad said it ‘has outlived its usefulness’ and ‘its days are over’ … But the straw poll has its defenders, including A.J. Spiker, current
head of the Republican Party of Iowa, which uses the straw poll as a key
fundraising tool.”