With registration for presidential candidates closing on February 20th, little time remains for a marginalised opposition to get organised.
With nominations for Lib Dem leadership candidates closing on Wednesday, the contest is almost certain to be a head-to-head battle between the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron, and Lamb.
Trump boasted in a speech that he was the "law and order candidate". Close on the heels of this, new polls showed that in the three states that will again likely decide the election, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, Trump surged in the polls to either edge or pull to a statistical dead heat with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Both parties, he said, seemed to be settling on candidates close to the political center.
Unlike, say, Ronald Reagan, or the Bush and Clinton families, who have been through the ringer so often that they can dust themselves off at the end of a fight and go on being friends, candidates closer to home are unused to political warfare.
Voting to select the candidates closed at 12pm on Friday.
The Department of Culture Media and Sport's deadline for applications from what is expected to be a broad field of candidates closed at 5pm on Friday.
The candidates are closer on the question of which one will better handle the economy.
"I have three open positions; I was close on one, then the candidate said no.
In the contest to represent the Ninth District, a densely populated patch of middle-class and working-class suburbs in southern Bergen and northern Hudson counties, the candidates seemed so close on major issues that it was difficult to distinguish differences.
