“I have concluded this year’s Iowa Straw Poll will serve only to weaken conservative candidates and further empower the Washington ruling class and their hand-picked candidates,” Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, writes in a guest opinion piece published Thursday in The Des Moines Register.

It’s a blow to the Republican Party of Iowa, which decided to go ahead with this year’s event despite years of criticism and repeated calls for its death from outside and inside Iowa. Last week, the Register reported that another leading GOP contender, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had decided to bypass the Iowa Straw Poll.