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DES MOINES, Iowa — The Republican who faces the most difficult path to victory in the Iowa caucuses is Rand Paul, according to a Des Moines Register analysis of how the presidential candidates fare amid the four main GOP factions here.

The three best positioned to rise: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.

A new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll found the most dominant “lane” in the caucusgoing Republican electorate is made up of Christian conservatives (39%), followed by business-oriented establishment types (22%), Tea Partiers (21%) and liberty movement followers (8%).

Sizing up how each candidate does in each lane is a different way of gauging potential future success or failure, rather than looking at ranking in the horse race, which tends to measure popularity and the effect of the recent political news cycle.

First-place poll winners come and go, but the GOP lanes in Iowa tend to be more fixed. There’s some shifting and overlap between lanes, but the late August Iowa Poll asked likely caucusgoers to select the one that describes them best. Approximately 11% weren’t sure any of those labels properly fit them.

The leaders in these lanes may attract more followers as caucusgoers coalesce around a single candidate in their lane, Iowa politics watchers said.

“The traditional ‘three tickets out of Iowa’ don’t necessarily have to be the top three finishers on Feb. 1, but instead be the leader in each ideological lane,” said GOP strategist Matt Strawn.

Paul, a Kentucky U.S. senator, was at one time expected to be a formidable contender in Iowa, partly because he could build on the popularity of his father, past presidential candidate Ron Paul. The younger Paul rules the liberty movement lane, but because the poll shows that faction is very small, he could be looking at a hard ceiling here. And he has one of the worst rankings in each of the three larger lanes, the poll found.

Carson, a retired doctor and conservative book author, is the favorite of Christian conservatives, the biggest faction of the caucusgoing electorate. He’s No. 2 for both business Republicans and Tea Partiers, according to the analysis, which took into account voters’ top two choices for president.

Cruz ranks high in the Tea Party lane, the faction that the poll indicates is most motivated to attend the caucuses. The Texas U.S. senator also does well with Christian conservatives.

Fiorina, a former tech company CEO, is also well-positioned in two lanes: Tea Partiers and business Republicans.

The lanes are a traditional way for strategists to size up the Iowa caucuses, as they try to figure out where their candidate fits best, how to maximize a voting bloc, and where they can dip into other lanes.

But what’s happening this election cycle, partly because of current front-runner Donald Trump, is that the lane lines have been blurred by personality, as well as voters' powerful desire for sweeping change.

The undercurrents have left Iowa with two overarching lanes: Iowa Republicans who want a trusted, experienced politician, and those who want an outsider who will be a disruptive force.

Donald Trump talks to a group of kids waiting to get a ride in his helicopter in Des Moines (Photo: Kelsey Kremer, The Des Moines Register)

Trump is currently winning with Tea Party conservatives and business Republicans, and he' s doing well in a third lane (Christian conservatives). The New York business mogul’s command in these lanes is a function of his status as the leader in the horse race. But GOP insiders pointed out that Iowans, unlike the punditocracy, aren’t in a rush to determine the final outcome and are happy to change their minds three or four times.

“Donald Trump tapped into the anger that exists in all the groups. Will he stay where he’s at? Historically speaking, probably not,” said Loras Schulte, a longtime Tea Party supporter and a member of the Republican Party of Iowa’s governing committee.

Each lane, in the end, will find its candidate, strategists said. Rick Santorum knew his lane all along (Christian conservatives), but his lane didn’t find him until it made a rocket-launch move just before the 2012 caucuses.

THE FOUR MAIN LANES

If the Republican presidential race in Iowa is one long fishing trip, the polls’ horse race numbers are bobbers that indicate nibbles of interest but often get blown all over by that day’s winds. The “lanes” — the factions that likely caucusgoers identify with most — are piers anchored in the harbor.

The Des Moines Register analyzed how 14 GOP presidential candidates — those with at least 1% in the late August Iowa Poll — fare in those lanes. Those candidates are: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz; former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; Kentucky U.S. Rand Paul; former Texas Gov. Rick Perry; Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio; former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum; real estate mogul Donald Trump; and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The%ages listed here reflect Iowa likely GOP caucusgoers' first- and second-choice votes.

Christian conservative lane

Percentage of electorate: 39%.

Ben Carson is a favorite among Iowa's Christian conservatives. (Photo: AP)

Whose natural lane is this? Carson, Huckabee, Jindal and Santorum.

Who’s doing best with these voters? Carson, 38%; Trump, 24%; Cruz, 21%; Walker, 18%.

Who’s doing worst? Christie, 3%; Paul, Perry and Kasich with 4% each.

Aside from Trump, Carson is the guy to beat in Iowa, the poll shows.

Carson fits the model of what the Iowa caucuses winner looked like in 2008 and 2012 — strongest among Christian conservatives. He’s draining support from Huckabee, Jindal and Santorum, who need to win this lane.

Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who did so well among evangelicals in 2008, is losing in this universe 3-1 to Carson. Huckabee is fifth in this lane at 13%, behind Walker. Pastors have been endorsing Huckabee, but it looks like folks sitting in the pews are beginning to coalesce around Carson, strategists said.

Santorum, who won the 2012 caucuses with the aid of the Christian conservative bloc, now ranks ninth in this lane at 5%.

For those who pine for an outsider, but can’t stand the bombast of Trump or doubt the role of faith in his life, Carson is a landing post, Iowa Republicans said.

“He’s the antithesis of Donald Trump,” said Loras Schulte, a longtime GOP insider who ran Gary Bauer’s Iowa campaign in 2000 and has stayed neutral in 2016 so far. “He’s probably a step beyond that rocket scientist we all talk about.”

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina speaks at the Heritage Foundation on Dec.18, 2014, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Business-oriented establishment Republican lane

Percentage of electorate: 22%.

Whose natural lane is this? Bush, Christie, Fiorina, Kasich, Rubio and Walker.

Who’s doing best? Trump, 35%; Bush and Carson, 22% each; Fiorina, 21%.

Who’s doing worst? Santorum, zero; Jindal and Paul, 2% each.

For now, Trump leads. Iowa CEOs are beginning to circle around Bush — 32 well-known business leaders have now endorsed him — but will the rank-and-file business Republicans get there, too?

Jack Evans, president of the Hall-Perrine Foundation, a private philanthropic corporation in Cedar Rapids, said he expects to see Bush begin to undermine Trump in this category.

“I feel Mr. Bush is far more qualified as far as hands-on experience in leading a government organization,” Evans said. “My instinct would be that the Trump phenomenon will run its course. I just don’t think he’s had the experience to lead a country.”

Other politics watchers think this lane is up for grabs, with six candidates who best fit this category.

Some Republicans are attempting to inhabit multiple lanes — Walker, Carson, Cruz, Fiorina, Perry — and that works if support from one group doesn’t alienate the other, strategists said. For example, Cruz can tap Christian conservatives and Tea Partiers simultaneously, but faction fence-straddlers can bump into resistance if they try to stand in both the business/establishment lane and the Christian conservative lane.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign stop Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015, in Tyler, Texas. (Photo: Andrew D. Brosig, AP)

Tea Party lane

Percentage of electorate: 21%.

Whose natural lane is this? Cruz, Perry and Trump.

Who’s doing best with these voters? Trump, 43%; Carson, 36%; Cruz, 32%; and Fiorina, 17%.

Who’s doing worst? Christie, zero; Paul, 1%.

Trump’s front-runner status in Iowa leans heavily on this lane. If he were to falter, it looks like support may very well go to Carson and Cruz, politics watchers said.

“Trump’s popularity is in some ways reactionary,” said Joel Kurtinitis, a former Republican Party of Iowa central committee member and former Paul backer who’s now with Cruz.

Kurtinitis said members of the Tea Party lane, which shares elements with the liberty movement lane, may not see Trump’s ideology as identical to their own, but he represents a challenge to the status quo.

“I think the Tea Party is incredibly tired of being bullied by the left,” Kurtinitis said. “It’s like rooting for the bad guy to take out the guy that’s picking on you.”

Bush, a Catholic with a conservative record as Florida governor, could scoop up some cross-overs from the Christian lane, but the poll shows the Tea Party is definitely not his universe. He and Kasich get only 2% here.

Only Christie and Paul fare worse. For Paul’s flagging campaign to improve in Iowa, he’d need to regain his footing among Tea Party voters, strategists said.

Presidential candidate Rand Paul speaks at the Iowa Memorial Union on April 10, 2015. (Photo: David Scrivner, (Iowa City) Press)

Liberty movement lane

Percentage of electorate: 8%.

Whose natural lane is this? Paul.

Who’s doing best? Paul wins a majority — and compared to all other candidates, that’s huge.

Who’s doing worst? N/A. This faction is so small the numbers can’t be reported out.

Paul is getting a big percentage of a diminishing vote in Iowa.

“Paul continues driving into stiff headwinds,” said GOP strategist Matt Strawn, a former state party chairman. “Not only is his natural constituency the smallest within Iowa’s Republican electorate, the on-ramps to the other lanes within the party are already congested with credible choices for Iowa Republicans.”

Liberty movement Iowans excited about his father, then-Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, were a potent force in the 2012 caucuses, draping bedsheets over interstate overpasses, raising questions about whether the gold in Fort Knox was really gone, and applauding the elder Paul’s less restrained views on marijuana use and more restrained stances on fighting wars.

But this piece of the electorate has shrunk as foreign policy has returned in importance to the party, and Republicans view Paul’s position as out of step, politics watchers said.

“There’s no one who mirrors Ron Paul’s priorities in this race,” Kurtinitis said.

Most motivated lane?

A higher proportion of Tea Partiers say they will definitely (rather than probably) attend, the most recent Iowa Poll shows. Next is the Christian conservatives, who have historically been faithful caucusgoers. The softest are the business Republicans, some of whom have said they might avoid the caucuses if they feel like they’re being swamped by the other factions. Only 39% of this lane says they’ll definitely caucus; 61% say they’ll probably go.

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