Entering the homestretch in the Iowa caucuses

The staff of The World and Everything in It has profiled 22 possible 2016 presidential candidates in its “White House Wednesday” series. Now they take a look at who’s ahead and who’s making moves as the primaries get closer.

With 25 days until the Iowa caucuses, media there are saturated with the voices of presidential hopefuls, each pleading their case and employing the best political marketing money can buy.

“The Constitution wasn’t a first draft. Our border isn’t a revolving door, and the rule of law wasn’t meant to be broken. America is off track, but our founding principles will get us back,” Republican frontrunner Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says in one ad.

Cruz is edging out the national leader, Donald Trump, by four percentage points in Iowa.

A Trump ad that began airing yesterday already is stirring controversy. It features grainy video footage of people pouring across a border. The implication is it’s video of the U.S. southern border, when, in fact, video crews shot the images thousands of miles away in Morocco.

Ben Carson has slipped dramatically in Iowa and nationally. Exactly two months ago, Carson led in Iowa with 25 percent in an average of state polls. In eight weeks, he’s fallen into the single digits with 9 percent of voters’ support.

To best his opponents on Feb. 1, Cruz is positioning himself as the conservative standard-bearer in the race. He’s keying in on the frustration many conservatives feel that the Republican Party hasn’t stood up for its values and convictions to the degree that the left has backed its own principles.

Cruz also has a strong ground game in Iowa. Among the top-tier candidates, no one has invested more there overall than Cruz. He’s spent more time on the ground in Iowa than most of his opponents, and he has a good-sized staff and an army of volunteers.

In contrast, the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has taken some heat for an unconventional approach to the traditional ground game. Rubio doesn’t place as much value as some other candidates on brick-and-mortar facilities where volunteers gather and coordinate. His campaign says that sort of thing can be done online now at a fraction of the cost. He only has four paid staffers in Iowa, while Cruz has eight, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has 10, and Donald Trump has 16. Rubio’s campaign is investing more in advertising and online contact. The risk of Rubio’s wireless approach is that his canvassing and door-knocking operation simply won’t be as strong as that of other candidates.

We’ll know in less than a month whose strategy pays off.

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