Matt Strawn, the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, announced in a video message on Tuesday that he will step down on Feb. 11.
Strawn has been the GOP chairman for over three years and oversaw Republican gains in the House and Senate. But some were unhappy with his handling of the Iowa caucus vote count.
Following the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus on Jan. 3, it appeared that Mitt Romney had edged Rick Santorum by eight votes.
However, three weeks later, after certified results showed that Santorum won the state by 34 votes, Strawn waffled when asked to stand behind the recount, leading Craig Robinson, former political director for the Iowa GOP, to allege in
The Iowa Republican on Tuesday that “Strawn’s talking points seemed to echo that of the Romney campaign.”
“If the only thing that Strawn was guilty of was a difficulty in communicating the result of the certified vote, it would be one thing, but Strawn went out of his way to undermine the validity of caucuses themselves,” Robinson wrote. “Instead of talking about the 1,766 precincts that were certified, he talked about the eight that were not. In doing so, Strawn not only undermined the final results of the caucuses, but he also failed to stand behind the hundreds of volunteers and activists that help conduct the caucuses.”
Strawn did not address the controversy in his resignation speech.
“Because the Iowa GOP has returned as a strong and relevant voice in Iowa politics ... I have the opportunity to evaluate all the competing priorities in my personal, business and political life,” he said. “The time has come for me to give those other priorities in my life the attention they deserve.”
