On paper, Sen. Mike Lee sure appears vulnerable. His unfavorable rating among Utahns is above 50 percent. Many establishment Republicans consider him too conservative and ideologically rigid. He hasn't proven that he can raise major campaign money.

And yet no one has stepped forward to challenge him in 2016, and it's increasingly likely that no big-name Republican or Democrat will. At this stage, Lee, the most conservative senator in the nation and Utah's most polarizing politician, appears to have an easy path to re-election.

He's pulled off a "magician's act," according to one Republican insider, who is baffled that Lee has emerged so politically strong just a year and a half after the freshman senator's anti-Affordable Care Act strategy led to a government shutdown and an avalanche of criticism.

So, how did he do it? Lee and his campaign team say it is simple: The power of his personality has won over former skeptics. He reached out to the business community and explained his conservative vision, which, boiled down to its essence, seeks a smaller, less-intrusive government and stronger civic organizations to help the needy.

That outreach helped, but it's not that straightforward. Other factors have cleared the field, some of which were in Lee's control but many others were not.

Lee has a collection of well-funded outside groups, such as the Senate Conservatives Fund and FreedomWorks, ready to spend millions of dollars eviscerating anyone who challenges their tea-party champion. Some potential challengers have shifted their gaze to 2018 and the seat held by Sen. Orrin Hatch, who says he plans to retire after 42 years in office. Others don't have the stomach to challenge a friend in what would surely be a bruising political fight.

"There was a time when the pot was stirring with some big Utah names, I think now the consensus is Mike Lee is our guy," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who was one of the people who declined entreaties to challenge Lee.

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Clock ticking • The Republican nominating convention is a year away, but anyone hoping to challenge an incumbent senator would have to start building a campaign team, increasing his or her name identification and raising money for a TV ad blitz.

"If you are going to make a run for the Senate," Chaffetz said, "you better darn well be in gear right now."

No one is even seriously thinking of putting it in gear, according to a series of interviews with prominent Republicans and Democrats.

Thomas Wright, a former chairman of the Utah GOP, was the last widely known Republican contemplating a Senate run, but he has decided against it. While he believes he could give Lee a tough race, Wright doesn't want to step away from his growing real-estate business or his young family. Josh Romney, the son of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has made no formal announcement, but has privately informed Republicans that, while he'd like to run for public office, he'll sit this one out as well.

Those two potential challengers have received the bulk of the attention, but there was an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes effort to find someone to confront Lee, and it was led by a man who is now a chairman of Lee's campaign committee.

Scott Anderson, the CEO of Zions Bank, had been encouraging people to stand against Lee even before a stalemate in Congress led to a partial government shutdown in October 2013. Lee was the mastermind of that effort, which he hoped would end funding to Obamacare. It did not. He and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took the bulk of the criticism from Democrats and middle-of-the-road Republicans, while they were feted by the far right.

In the aftermath of what turned out to be a 16-day debacle, Anderson redoubled his efforts, commissioning Dan Jones to conduct a series of polls, which he hoped to use to recruit an establishment GOP standard-bearer. Anderson put the prospective candidates in tiers, according to the poll results. The four men best positioned to beat Lee were Chaffetz, Romney, former Gov. Mike Leavitt and Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics.

All four declined, though Jowers considered it for much of 2014. Anderson also talked to candidates in lower tiers, people such as Wright, former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, among others.

Some people expressed mild interest, but Anderson got no takers.