As she raced to complete her goal of visiting all 99 Iowa counties, she frequently mentioned her rivals. Yet they all but ignored her, a sign of what many Republicans here see as her fading fortunes after winning the Iowa straw poll this summer.

Mr. Perry is also focused on making his case to religious voters for whom social issues are paramount. The slogan on his campaign bus now says, “Faith, Jobs, Freedom,” a change from several months ago when his message was, “Get America Working Again.”

At stops in Council Bluffs and Clarinda, Mr. Perry continued to present himself as an outsider who would shake up Washington with his call for a part-time Congress. But his speeches also included quotes from the Bible and promises to protect “innocent life.”

“When the Lord asked the prophet Isaiah, he said, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ Isaiah said, ‘Here am I, send me,’” Mr. Perry said in Council Bluffs. “This is your country. Taking her back is your calling. Join me in this mission.”

Mr. Perry also announced that he had changed his mind on whether abortions should be allowed in cases of rape and incest and if the mother’s life is in danger. A month ago he agreed to those exceptions. But, he explained to a crowd in Osceola, he had watched a video on the issue recently and now believed that abortion should be outlawed entirely.

As Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann try to gain ground among evangelicals, they are hoping to follow in the path of Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, who was the Republican winner of the Iowa caucuses in 2008 after making a late appeal to religious conservatives.

While Mr. Santorum sought to reassure voters at a stop here in Mason City that “no one is more pro-life than me,” he said that his candidacy was far broader. He asked voters to think for themselves and not buy into the Republican argument that only a few of the party’s candidates could defeat Mr. Obama.