Tenth farking place. Three months ago, I would have told you that a midwestern evangelical governor with Scott Walker’s record could stay home in Wisconsin and never campaign and still do no worse than, say, third in Iowa.

Remember, this is supposed to be Walker’s must-win early state.

Donald Trump has the support of 27 percent of Iowa likely Republican Caucus participants, with 21 percent for Ben Carson and 9 percent for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to the results of a July 1 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University showing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 18 percent, with Trump and Carson at 10 percent each.

Today, Walker is at 3 percent, way behind in the pack. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has 6 percent of Iowa likely Republican Caucus participants, with 5 percent each for Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. No other candidate tops 4 percent, with 4 percent undecided.

Yes, that’s right, Scott Walker now trails “undecided.” In Iowa. In fact, check the RCP poll tracker for the state and you’ll find that it’s been a solid month since he’s cracked double digits there. The main cause, of course, is Trumpmania; Walker was at 22 percent in mid-July, right before Trump took off. But don’t underestimate the damage Ben Carson’s doing to his numbers too. The biggest takeaway from today’s Q-poll is that Carson’s ratings across a variety of “character” metrics — baseline favorability, trustworthiness, whether he cares about people like you — are simply phenomenal, almost unbelievably so. Here’s the data on the “people like you” question. Mind-boggling:

Overall, Carson’s favorable rating is 79/6. When Republicans are asked if he’s honest and trustworthy, they split … 88/4. Strong leadership qualities: 76/11. The right kind of temperament to handle an international crisis: 72/14. Iowans looooooove them some Ben Carson — so much so that it’s a mystery how he’s still trailing Trump in the race. The answer to that, I think, is twofold. First, Trump’s numbers are now surprisingly good themselves for a guy who started this race with negative favorable ratings among Republicans. He’s now at 60/35 favorable, with 56 percent saying he’s honest and trustworthy, 61 saying he cares about the problems of people like you — darned good for a flamboyant billionaire — and 52 percent saying he has the right temperament to handle an international crisis. Even so, those numbers pale next to Carson’s, which brings us to the second reason for Trump’s lead: At this point, he’s still benefiting from name recognition in polls. Just four percent of Iowans said they hadn’t heard enough about him to form an opinion yet compared to 15 percent who say so about Carson, a guy who’s already participated in one national debate and has had literature promoting him in Iowa for many months. Given the way his numbers are trending, unless he has a terrible debate next week, I figure he’ll pass Trump in Iowa no later than a month from now.

The poll’s a mixed bag for Ted Cruz, the third-place finisher. On the one hand, he’s sailed past Walker as the professional politician who’s best positioned to win Iowa if Trump and Carson falter. On the other hand, check this out:

Cruz has spent two and a half years building the case to Republicans voters that he may be in Washington but he’s not of Washington. The fact that he trails a doctor who’s never run for office before by double digits suggests that that project hasn’t totally succeeded. Here’s another alarm for Cruz from elsewhere in the crosstabs, answering the million-dollar question of whether he truly is the second choice of voters supporting his good friend Donald. Answer: Nope. Not by a longshot.

Cruz’s favorables are solid on all the metrics I mentioned above, but like everyone else in the field, they’re not quite on Carson’s level. I think Team Cruz is happy with this result, assuming (not unreasonably) that Carson will sound too shaky and amateurish on policy in the long run for Iowans to take the plunge for him on caucus night, but I don’t know. Carson’s a smart guy; he does in fact learn from his mistakes. If I had to bet on whether a famous neurosurgeon will sound more shaky or less shaky on policy as he bones up on it and spends more time interacting with voters on the trail, I’d bet on the latter. It’s easy to see why Iowans might eventually abandon Trump — the shtick will wear thin, the attacks on his bogus conservatism will start to bite, etc. It’s not as easy to see why they might abandon Carson. The best argument against him is that he’s a newbie with no experience, but look again at the second table I posted above. You really think “not enough government experience” is a winning attack in this climate?

Then again, I think Cruz will be just fine even if he finishes second or third in Iowa. His goal there is to prove that he’s a serious threat for the nomination, especially with South Carolina and the “SEC primary” on the horizon afterward. If he finishes, say, second to Carson in Iowa and Trump wins New Hampshire, South Carolinians may decide that Cruz is the most viable possible compromise candidate, an anti-establishmentarian who knows Washington well enough that he won’t feel at sea there if he’s elected. That’s when Cruz takes off. Exit question: Can Walker come back from this? It’s early, yeah, but once you’ve got the stink of loser on you, how likely are voters who dumped you in the first place to come back to you later?