The trend in the polls has been slowly narrowing all year, slowly at first, followed by a long pause, then slowly once more.
François Hollande's lead over Nicolas Sarkozy is narrowing just two days before France's presidential elections, but the incumbent still has a formidable challenge to overhaul the deficit in time for Sunday's vote.
"Is that new?" friends would ask, narrowing their eyes, if I wore an old shirt dug out from the darkest recesses of my wardrobe.
Steffen said the trends of a hotter and drier climate meant bushfire season in southern WA was stretching into spring and autumn, narrowing the window for fire management authorities to safely conduct prescribed burns.
But Ukip's campaign has seen ups and downs since the beginning of the year, which began with big ambitions for seats in double figures, narrowing almost exclusively to South Thanet, and now seems to have broadened out again to four to six constituencies.
Polls at the weekend suggested a 40-point lead for the yes campaign in the Ireland referendum vote, though the margin was narrowing slightly.
Yesterday that was refined to a core of more likely suspects that could number as low as five, although police sources are cautious of narrowing one of the biggest inquiries of its kind at such a relatively early stage.
But there might not be a partner or BFF on the horizon; and narrowing connection to a search for more private ties is counterproductive.
"If it's a funding issue, we should not be encouraging people to study locally if it is narrowing their options".
Some establishment party figures have blamed the event for prematurely narrowing the field and forcing candidates to compete in what top GOP strategist David Kochel (now slated to be Jeb Bush's national campaign manager) once called "a goat rodeo".
The Fifa secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, said on Monday: "We are getting closer to narrowing the dates for the World Cup to two options January-February 202222 or November-December 2022 – but Fifa has also been asked to consider May 2022.
