| Return to Pre-Campaign Period |
| One indicator of pre-campaign activity is visits by potential candidates to Iowa, site of the first-in-the-nation caucuses. Hugh Winebrenner, professor of public administration at Drake University, has tracked these visits for several election cycles and notes that pre-campaign Iowa maneuvering has been particularly intense on the Republican side in the lead up to 2000. |
| Democrats: 44 days | Republicans: 189 days |
| Bradley 1 | Alexander 36 |
| Dean 2 | Ashcroft 17 |
| Gephardt 10 | Bauer 6 |
| Gore 5 | Buchanan 1 |
| Jackson 6 | Dole 4 |
| Kerrey 7 | Forbes 15 |
| Wellstone 13 | Gingrich 4 |
| Giuliani 1 | |
| Kasich 18 | |
| Kemp 9 | |
| Keyes 9 | |
| McCain 2 | |
| Quayle 19 | |
| Smith 41 | |
| F.Thompson 1 | |
| T.Thompson 2 | |
| J.C.Watts 3 |
| By comparison to the 189 days 17 Republicans spent in Iowa in the Jan. 1997-Nov. 1998 period, at the same point in the pre-1996 campaign 12 Republican prospects had spent just 69 days. Note that perceived frontrunner Texas Governor George W. Bush did not even set foot in the state during this period. Winebrenner's tally does not show visits by surrogates; for example, Marilyn Quayle made several extensive trips to Iowa in 1998. |