The Hill News

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will meet with conservative activists in New Hampshire and South Carolina on Saturday while other Republican presidential candidates compete in Iowa's highly-anticipated straw poll.

Perry will gladhand in two of the other crucial three early primary states this weekend in preparation for his own increasingly likely-looking bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Most of the other candidates will be in Ames, Iowa, where the state GOP will host its straw poll of voters to gauge their early preference in candidates to win next February's Iowa caucuses.

Perr! y will meet with conservative activists and bloggers at a gathering hosted by the influential blog RedState, a long-planned engagement taking place in Charleston, S.C.

But Perry added a second leg to his travels this weekend, planning to attend a house party that evening in New Hampshire hosted by a state Republican lawmaker in the state. Perry received the invitation to come to the Granite State at his National Day of Prayer rally in Houston this past weekend according to the New Hampshire Union Leader, which first reported the details of Perry'! s trip.

The trip amounts to another step on Perry'! s slow b ut deliberate walk toward entering the race for president. And with many of the other candidates set to be in Ames â€" former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) won't attend â€" it gives Perry a chance to build support relatively uncontested while his electoral foes compete in Iowa.