Castellanos again worked for Bob Dole on his 1996 presidential election campaign. It was during this campaign that Castellanos discussed the importance of "soccer moms" as a political demographic with "The Washington Post" columnist E.J. Dionne. The phrase went on to become one of the key buzzwords of the election year. Castellanos worked on Jesse Helms' re-election campaign in 1996; Helms pulled controversial ads against Charlie Sanders and Harvey Gantt in April 1996, and Castellanos left the campaign at that time. He worked for Bob Taft's 1998 campaign for governor of Ohio.