Constituency Proile/North Down:Ten years ago the voters of North Down would not have seen a DUP candidate knocking on doors. These days Peter Weir, an Ulster Unionist defector, does precisely that.
Accompanied by Alex Easton, a surprise winner in the 2003 Assembly campaign, the DUP is fighting for a third seat. It's a tall order, but the party is targeting the vote of rebel unionist Bob McCartney and anticipating a possible further decline in UUP support.
McCartney anticipates that Ian Paisley's bid to do business with Sinn Féin will backfire and that unionists will damn him for doing what he once set his face against.
Lady Sylvia Hermon is the popular local MP and the Ulster Unionists' only member of the House of Commons. She can attract half the vote in a general election, winning some tactical votes from others, notably the Alliance Party, in the process.
However, she's not on the UUP ticket and the anti-agreement McCartney vote is not what it once was. That leaves an open chance for the DUP and the party is going for it.
Easton is a cautious campaigner and does not count his chickens, but he knows that the reception on the doorstep is indifferent at worst and increasingly positive elsewhere. One woman convinces him that solid constituency work means she'll give him a No 1 and she is encouraging others to do the same.
"In a sense the DUP is like Sinn Féin," he says. "We both do the ground work well, we're close to the electorate and it pays off at times like this." There is a sense among Easton's voters that they want the DUP to "get on with it" and do a deal to restore Stormont - even if it means sharing power with Martin McGuinness. You can't choose your enemies.
Alan McFarland, the UUP's main man, believes that DUP policy changes won't go un- noticed among the solidly unionist electorate. "Paisley changed at St Andrews," he says. "He promised a new deal without Sinn Féin and the d'Hondt mechanism. Not now." The push for a third DUP seat is a sign of a party over-reaching itself, he believes, and it is simply running too many candidates.
People want "normal politics" and he insists his party will "catch the wave" of popular opinion in favour of powersharing and stability. "Paisley and McGuinness cannot provide that," he says, a fact the electorate appreciates. They will vote accordingly, he hopes.
To the outsider North Down is affluent, Protestant and unchanging. The facts are otherwise.
Poverty sits alongside some of the wealthiest areas of Northern Ireland. Its voters are independently minded and, rather than solidly Protestant, a huge swathe of people do not have a religious affiliation or prefer not to declare it. Voter volatility means that in addition to the UUP-DUP dogfight, a host of others see the chance of grabbing a seat here.
The Greens are running a former Alliance frontrunner, hopeful of making the breakthrough on to the Stormont scene.
Brian Wilson is careful not to wish a plague upon the traditional houses of the larger established parties. Conscious of pressing local environmental concerns, he wants to ensure he corners the market for preference votes without annoying any one group of voters.
His party's biggest challenge is convincing anyone who will listen that the Greens are not a single-issue pressure group supported by those opting out of "normal" politics. The party, explicitly coveting the Alliance vote, sees itself as the deserved inheritor of voters fed up with the perceived tribalism of the larger parties.
But the Alliance Party is not surrendering that territory easily. Stephen Farry, party general secretary, believes he can and will hold on to the considerable personal support which the party's flag-bearer Eileen Bell had earned here since 1998.
Like the Green Party, Alliance has the area well marked out with posters and door-to-door campaigns established. Its tactic is to garner sufficient first preferences to avoid elimination, then to attract transfers - but that is also a tactic employed by a range of independents.
Brian Rowan, a former BBC journalist, caused many a raised eyebrow when he announced his candidacy. The Holywood man insists he's a genuinely independent independent - and not linked to any traditional camp.
A peace process insider, he says he is well placed "to act as a voice for the process" and to "make a contribution to the debate on all sides".
He could win. He could come nowhere - North Down is not an easy place to read.
NATIONALIST BATTLEGROUND:There isn't one. Of Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies, North Down comes 17th in the nationalist/Catholic running.
The SDLP and Sinn Féin survive on micro- percentages with many people sympathetic to such parties opting to vote tactically against the unionist they least like or, more likely, staying at home. The SDLP's Liam Logan has a profile in Ulster-Scots circles, so he may benefit somewhat, but there is little chance for him to challenge for a seat.
Voters who do not see themselves as unionist have Alliance and a variety of Independent options. Remember that the outgoing Alliance member, Eileen Bell, is a Falls Road Catholic, proving that religion may be less of a factor here than in other unionist areas.
UNIONIST BATTLEGROUND:This is relatively new territory for the DUP following years of independent unionist representation by figures such as Robert McCartney and the late James Kilfedder.
This time, the DUP is well established and pushing for a third seat. Ulster Unionists too are hopeful of a third member with hopes fostered by the large personal vote for their only MP Lady Sylvia Hermon. However, she is not on the ticket and it could be that her vote exceeds her "party" vote and she benefits from Alliance tactical voting.
The DUP does rather better here in local government rather than Westminster elections, pointing to a complicated and unpredictable voting picture.
WILDCARDS:Take your pick. The larger parties mumble about the rising Green vote, the Conservative candidate and the Independents.
This is a volatile constituency - the Women's Coalition had a breakthrough here in 1998 before losing out next time around. No one genuinely knows if journalist Brian Rowan will win dozens or a few thousand votes.
PREDICTED OUTCOME:There could be seven or eight counts here before anyone reaches the quota for the first seat. It seems a fair bet that the DUP is on course for at least two seats as are the Ulster Unionists. Alliance, too, is well placed for a seat. But as one candidate suggested to The Irish Times: "Anybody can win the fifth seat and absolutely anybody can be in with a shout for the sixth."
OUTGOING MEMBERS
Leslie Cree (UUP) 3900 (12.6%)
*Peter Weir (DUP) 3675 (11.9%)
Alex Easton (DUP) 3570 (11.6%)
*Alan McFarland (UUP) 3421 (11.1%)
*Robert McCartney (UKUP) 3374 (10.9%)
*Eileen Bell (Alliance) 1951 (6.3%)
*Denotes winner of seat in 1998