Sen. Lindsey Graham to skip Iowa Straw Poll

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., fields questions at the Iowa Ag Summit. (Scott Olson, Getty Images)

Sen. Lindsey Graham won’t be participating in the Iowa Straw Poll

The South Carolina Republican, who is testing the waters for a 2016 presidential bid, told Radio Iowa

“I’m not going to go, you know, pay people to vote for me,” Graham said Friday in the radio interview. “We’ll let the people of Iowa do it for free. To me, the Straw Poll is more of a political sideshow.”

Graham, a lawyer in the Air Force Reserves, said he will try to build support for the Iowa presidential caucuses in February by appealing to military veterans and National Guard members.

“I’m solid social conservative,” he said. “I’m a pro-life-traditional-marriage kind of guy, with 33 years in the military. I want to talk about the threats we face and that’s what I’ll be doing instead of going to the Straw Poll.”

The senator recently made his first Iowa hire