Republican voters want an outsider; that much is clear. What’s not clear is how much they care about conservative credentials this election cycle, because on this score, their favored contenders are weak.

Donald Trump and Ben Carson collectively are capturing 40 percent of poll respondents’ support. But issue by issue, both fall short on positions that test how conservative they are. Trump likes to talk about universal health care. Carson has been leery of gun ownership for city dwellers. Both are late-comers to the anti-abortion cause.


Their opponents so far have ignored these ideological hiccups. But that is beginning to change. Rival campaigns are complaining publicly and privately that the two front-runners are, at best, new to the issues party activists care about most, and their activist supporters are starting to needle Trump and Carson on questions of orthodoxy to GOP principles.

“You’re going to see each of them crest relatively soon as they each start to get a little more pressure and the lights get a little brighter and each of their comments means a little more,” said Craig Stevens, a New Hampshire Republican consultant.

Carson’s most out of step on abortion policy. While the neurosurgeon says he is opposed to abortion, he has referred patients to doctors who perform the procedure. His campaign has, so far, been unable to reconcile those medical decisions, which he stands by, with his pro-life posture, and his team has confused the issue further by suggesting Carson doesn’t necessarily see a role for government in stopping abortions.

In multiple conversations with POLITICO, his campaign struggled to articulate a single legal restriction Carson would support. And as a doctor, Carson also performed research on fetal tissue, another practice that came to light as he began to surge in the polls — and one he says remains defensible.

Anti-abortion activists have noticed.

"I don’t think that anyone looking at those statements without interpretation would say that this is a solidly pro-life candidate," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.

Dannenfelser said she recently sat with Carson for more than an hour to suss out his position on abortion. Though she left feeling assured that he’s truly in the group’s camp, she said he must clarify his position publicly. “He has a particular burden to communicate exactly what he believes,” she said.

Carson has endorsed a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. But he appeared to take a different position again this week in his new book, "A More Perfect Union." In it, Carson proposes leaving abortion decision to voters in each state.

“There is hope that the Supreme Court may one day rule differently on abortion, but it would make more sense for the Court to allow states to decide the matter for themselves," he wrote. "One of the real beauties of having fifty different states governments is that almost everyone can find a place of happiness where the people believe as they do. Ultimately, it would make a great deal of sense to allow the people of each state to vote on the issue after they have been objectively educated."

Trump too has problems on this score. The GOP pack leader didn't publicly renounce his belief in abortion rights until 2011, when he was weighing a presidential bid. Trump previously described himself as "very pro-choice" and in the late 1990s opposed a ban on partial-birth abortions.

All of those positions are considered heretical among most conservatives, who have in other elections remained skeptical of candidates who have changed their views on the issue, including Mitt Romney.

That these leading candidates for the Republican nomination could deviate from the party line on such a fundamental issue is remarkable in an era when tea party-driven politics has sought to weed out impurity. On Capitol Hill, conservatives just celebrated nudging out House Speaker John Boehner over perceived weakness on issues important to the base.

“I think things such as Dr. Carson having made referrals for abortion and being unapologetic about it — those are things that are going to be coming out and are going to get some scrutiny in the next few weeks and months,” said Matt Beynon, a spokesman for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a social conservative who is also running for president.

Neither Trump, nor Carson's campaigns responded to requests for comment.

Their unorthodoxy extends well beyond abortion.

Carson has also stoked concerns among conservatives over his views on gun control, for instance. In 2013, he suggested that gun access should be restricted in urban areas—a comment he has since sought to clarify, chalking it up to political inexperience in speeches and in his new book. But his recent shift in rhetoric on that position hasn't assuaged concerns in some conservative corners about his commitment to protecting gun rights.

“Dr. Carson is not strong on the Second Amendment, especially for citizens living in urban areas,” said Jamie Johnson, an ordained minister who previously served as a top aide to Rick Perry in Iowa before the Texas governor dropped out. Stressing that he respected Carson as a person, the unaligned Johnson continued, “That is of great concern for many Christian conservatives.”

On gay marriage, Carson is again out of step with the most conservative activists in the party. After the Supreme Court's ruling this summer that paved the way for legalizing gay marriage across the country, Carson echoed Jeb Bush, saying the decision was now the law of the land, rather than siding with the evangelical-courting candidates now calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling.

And in "A More Perfect Union," Carson repeatedly says that while he personally doesn't want to redefine religious marriage, it's an issue best left to local officials. That's not what conservative evangelicals, who say any form of same-sex union is a threat to traditional marriage, want to hear.

"[T]oday there are numerous social issues, such as the legalization of marijuana, gay marriage and welfare reform, that could probably be more efficiently handled at the state level but with which the federal government keeps interfering," Carson wrote, in the book out Wednesday.

Carson also leans anti-interventionist as more of the Republican electorate embraces a greater U.S. role in fighting terrorism overseas. He didn't support going to war in either Afghanistan or Iraq, which puts him at odds with most of his party. And in the last presidential debate, he advised that President George W. Bush should have instead used the "bully pulpit," and suggested that sometimes, smarts are a substitute for military force—remarks that drew ridicule from rival candidates Chris Christie and Marco Rubio.

Trump bragged in the last debate about opposing the war in Iraq and took shots at Bush, a move that appeared to backfire in the Republican audience when Jeb Bush earned some of the biggest applause of the night, defending his brother.

The real estate mogul also has found himself at odds with Republican orthodoxy over health care. In the first debate, he spoke positively about single-payer health care in other countries, a remark that prompted incredulous rebuttals from establishment Republicans who consider a single-payer a government takeover. He also reiterated his interest in universal health coverage during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday. “Everybody's got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say,” he said, adding that he wants the government to pay for coverage for the uninsured.

And while a hard-line stance on immigration is now an animating issue of Trump's campaign, in 2012 he was attacking Romney from the left, suggesting that his Republican presidential campaign was "mean-spirited" toward Latinos. He called for a plan to "take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful productive citizens of this country" — a sharp departure in language from his rhetoric now, which includes accusing many illegal immigrants of being "rapists."

But Trump has so far been unscathed by these far-from-conservative remarks in the polls, to the chagrin and amazement of other campaigns that hope his record will catch up to him. And as the third Republican debate approaches, they’re preparing to pounce.

"Trump is a textbook case in what it means to flip-flop on political issues," Johnson said, echoing a criticism thrown Trump's way by everyone from Bush to Rand Paul.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of Trump’s favorite punching bags, posted a video questioning the front-runner’s conservativism, and the Club for Growth has launched ads in New Hampshire to try and undermine Trump's standing on the right.

And supporters of the more consistently conservative candidates say they are sure once voters are more tuned in, these out-of-step positions will drive Trump and Carson down in the polls.

Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, said elected officials are held to a different standard. But should Trump and Carson continue to rise, he expects that they’ll be pressed, especially by debate moderators. Scott Walker, he noted, rose in the polls to the point that he started getting pressed on policy matters — and he struggled.

“In terms of substance, on positions, I think it’s fair to say no one’s really challenged them,” Cullen said of Trump and Carson.

Yet.