What the Republican candidates' Iowa Caucus stops tell us about their campaigns

Iowans are beginning to take off for the holidays, perhaps enjoying a brief respite from the fast-approaching Iowa Caucuses.

Once they return, however, there'll be no rest for the politics weary. Candidates have just two weeks to make their final pitches to voters after the new year: Caucus night is set for Monday, Jan. 15.

As the clock ticks down on both 2023 and the caucus cycle (literally, if you've viewed our countdown clock), it's time to take a look back at how Republican presidential candidates spent their time in Iowa this year, thanks to data from the Register's Candidate Tracker.

Some presidential candidates individually rack up more than 100 events in Iowa

In 2023, candidates or potential candidates for president scheduled more than 800 public events in Iowa. That's a lot — more than two per day — but it still pales in comparison with the 2020 cycle, when a particularly large field of candidates held thousands of events in the run-up to the caucuses.

Among just the candidates left in the race — Ryan Binkley, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy and Donald Trump — the total is 583. (Another candidate, Chris Christie, scheduled no events in Iowa this year.)

DeSantis and Binkley have both scheduled more than 100 public appearances in Iowa this year. Ramaswamy's scheduled more than 200.

The candidates also have held dozens of additional private events within Iowa that are not represented on the Campaign Tracker.

Here are the counties in which each candidate has held scheduled, public events, or is scheduled to hold one before the end of 2023:

Tracker data shows Ramaswamy leading the group in both events held and counties visited in 2023; by the end of the year, he's scheduled to have held public events in at least 97 of the state's 99 counties.

But Binkely and DeSantis have also committed to visiting broad swaths of the state, part of strategies that have seen each of those three candidates step up their number of Iowa visits in the second half of the year.

Binkley has scheduled at least 10 public appearances in Iowa in six of the last seven months.

DeSantis has planned more stops in December than any candidate in any other month, save for Ramaswamy — who has scheduled more than 120 public events in the final two months of 2023.

Slow and steady for Nikki Haley and Asa Hutchinson

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson were among the first of the remaining Republican presidential hopefuls to visit Iowa, and they've both stayed the course. Each has made multiple public appearances in the state in every month since March.

More: Asa Hutchinson is polling at 1% in Iowa. He says he's still in the race to the caucus.

But while the other candidates ratcheted up the intensity of their itineraries, neither Haley nor Hutchinson exceeded more than a handful of events a month.

Both are making more frequent stops in Iowa as the caucuses approach — but not to the extent of the other candidates. Hutchinson made a dozen appearances in the state for the first time in November. Haley will reach double figures for the first time in December, thanks to a 10-event swing that kicked off Monday.

The strategy has yielded mixed results.

In the latest Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll, conducted by Selzer & Co. earlier in December, just 1% of likely caucusgoers named Hutchinson as their first choice for president. Haley was in third place, garnering first-choice status from 16% of likely caucusgoers.

Despite few visits, Donald Trump leads the field

Trump, the candidate in first place in that Iowa Poll, earned the support of a majority of likely caucusgoers despite making considerably fewer public appearances in the state this year.

Trump has had 17 scheduled public events in Iowa in 2023, and no more than six in any single month. When he's visited the state, he's tended to stick to more-populated areas such as Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Waterloo.

But Trump's large lead in the polls suggest he hasn't needed to do the sorts of sprawling trips across rural Iowa that candidates further back in the field use to drum up support.

That means Iowans' opportunities to see the former president may be dwindling. As of Monday, Trump's last scheduled public event in Iowa for 2023 was Dec. 19 in Waterloo. More events may be added to his schedule later, and he will almost certainly return before the caucuses in mid-January.

In the meantime, there's no shortage of other candidates visiting the state. You can see who's campaigning near you with the Des Moines Register Candidate Tracker.

Tim Webber is a data visualization specialist for the Register. Reach him at twebber@registermedia.com, and on Twitter at @HelloTimWebber.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Where GOP candidates made stops for 2024 Iowa Caucuses