A viewer's guide to Tuesday's GOP debate

The timing of Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate has no small amount of irony. It takes place the day before Veterans Day, the holiday that honors those who have served in the U.S. military. It also takes place in a primary cycle in which voters have rejected the political veterans among the Republican presidential hopefuls.

The Real Clear Politics polling average shows that the GOP field has split into three parts. The obvious separation at the top puts Donald Trump and Ben Carson far ahead of the rest of the field. Those two outsiders together account for 49.2 percent, making each of them the frontrunners by double digits over their nearest competitors. The next tier belongs to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the two first-term senators who have distanced themselves from the rest of the pack at 11.8 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively. Their strong performances in an otherwise dreadful CNBC debate last month gave the pair a boost that has eluded others in the field.

That leaves about 30 percent of the GOP electorate split between 10 other candidates, including six current or former two-term governors whose experience was predicted to be an enormous asset in 2016. Governors usually have two major advantages: a track record of executive experience, and a status as Washington outsiders that helps maintain the possibility of reform.

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In the 2016 cycle, however, voters have lumped the governors in with the "establishment," and none of them have fared well. Scott Walker and Rick Perry have already dropped out. Of the governors still in the fight, only Jeb Bush scores as high as 6 percent in the RCP average — and that is down from 8 percent three weeks ago. No other veteran politician polls at better than 3 percent. Chris Christie's star has descended low enough (2.2 percent) to get pushed from the main state to the undercard debate, as has Mike Huckabee's (2.4 percent). Bobby Jindal (0.8 percent) is but a blip on the radar.

The veterans are, simply put, flailing. Many of their campaigns have already begun running out of cash, as well as running out of voter enthusiasm. They have to find ways to break out in this debate — or they'll have to start considering what to do next in their careers. So what strategies will the GOP candidates need to employ in the debate to move up and keep from getting moved out? A brief guide:

The undercard: This is a four-person debate: Christie, Huckabee, Jindal, and Rick Santorum. Frankly, the only candidate in this group with any shot of moving up is one of the men who got bumped from the main stage: Christie. A video of Christie telling a moving story about a friend who died from an addiction to painkillers has gone viral. If Christie can get to that story in the debate, it might be distinctive enough to contrast with the normally contentious tone of the undercard debates. The other candidates have shown no hint of capturing the imagination of voters in three successive debates, and only Jindal shows any life at all in Iowa.

The pack: Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul have been consistent in the debates, but consistency alone won't help them. Fiorina has had three good debates and got a boost in polling after the second, but it dissipated quickly, and even another good debate performance will likely not lift her a second time. Paul, meanwhile, has seen his two freshman Senate colleagues catapult into the second tier, while he muddles along at 3 percent.

By contrast, John Kasich and Jeb Bush have tried too hard to put on different personas in the debates. Both did damage to themselves while trying to damage others — Kasich aimed at Trump and Carson (and missed), while Bush took a muddled swipe at Rubio and got embarrassed by Rubio's condescending response. Kasich has to find a middle ground between his Happy Chappy and Grumpy Grampa personas in the last two debates, and hope that he can grab a viral moment for something other than a rant. Bush hasn't learned from his belly flop; his team has telegraphed yet again that they will launch attacks on Rubio rather than Trump or Carson, making Team Bush look more desperate than ever. Fending off attacks from the GOP's most establishment candidate might end up boosting Rubio, especially if Bush flubs his attacks tonight as badly as he did in the last debate.

Tier two: Rubio and Cruz have a few choices: Attack each other, attack the top tier, or attack the media. The pair changed the tenor of the CNBC debate by choosing Option 3, but they may be sorely tempted to try Option 1 tonight to make themselves the alternative to the outsiders in the top tier. It's almost a certainty that they will avoid Option 2, since they can afford to bide their time — a luxury that those farther back do not have. At this stage, both will be safest with Option 3.

The leaders: Most predicted that Trump and Carson would have faded long before now. Instead, they're dominating — so why change strategies? Trump has been content to let everyone else chip at each other on stage, while Carson has emphasized his common-sense, common-man approach. Carson will have an opportunity to launch a broadside at the media, especially if the panel starts drilling the doctor on his biography. Otherwise, the co-champs so far may feel as though it's up to the challengers to knock them off of their perch rather than risk their standing by punching down — and they'd be right.