LAGAN Valley incumbent Sir Jeffrey Donaldson must surely be eyeing Nigel Dodds's position as the DUP's Westminster leader come December 13.
For while the latter currently is engaged in a rearguard fight to retain his seat in North Belfast, such is Sir Jeffrey's hold on the constituency, he will surely have a surfeit of downtime to strategise for life after polling day.
More than an overwhelmingly unionist constituency, Lagan Valley is an overwhelmingly Jeffrey Donaldson constituency.
Anointed as the successor to former UUP leader James Molyneaux when the latter retired in 1997 after 15 years as its MP, the then rising star of the party proved equal to the task.
Lord Molyneaux's enormous 23,565 majority was able to absorb a 6,640 fall-off after the handover.
Sir Jeffrey's slightly rebounded 18,342 majority in 2001 was in turn able to cushion him against a 4,225 drop in the 2005 election which came almost two years after his defection to the rival DUP.
The 2017 poll saw him gain `Molyneaux levels' of support with 59.6 per cent of the vote.
The most serious challenge to these eye-watering totals has been from falls in turnout rather than any of rival candidates - his majority was whittled away to a mountainous 10,486 in 2010 when the numbers at the polling stations reached their nadir.
That is the kind of `blip' some colleagues in nearby Belfast would trade their Lisburn Road lattes for.
Popular UUP councillor Robbie Butler is taking his second run at unseating Sir Jeffrey and the former firefighter is tackling the mission with all the brio of someone experienced at running into a burning building.
In 2017 he managed to build on his colleague Alex Redpath's 2015 effort, but progress from 15.2 per cent of the vote to 16.8 per cent is not the sort of momentum from which great political upsets are made.
Alliance party rising star Sorcha Eastwood is also standing in the constituency, having transferred from the republican bastion of West Belfast where she tried her luck two years ago.
This time polling day should be less hectic than her last Westminster outing, which saw her also squeeze in her wedding, although as photo ops go it will be hard to top.
However, Ms Eastwood is all but guaranteed to improve on her haul of just 731 votes, with her Lagan Valley predecessor Aaron McIntyre polling a respectable 4,996 votes in 2017.
SDLP veteran and former publican Pat Catney is not going forward this time, with the party instead selecting politics student Ally Haydock, who it fielded to stand for Lisburn and Castlereagh Council earlier this year after its then councillor Mairia Cahill withdrew from the race over security concerns.
She did not retain that seat and her reappearance just seven months later is perhaps an indication that the SDLP is not ploughing excessive resources into a seat which it has no hope of winning.
Sinn Féin Gary McCleave, who gained Ms Cahill's seat, is now having run at Westminster. He was the first republican to win a seat since creation of the new council will seek to solidify the gain with any growth in the 1,567 votes of 2017.
CANDIDATES
Party Candidate
UUP Robbie Butler
DUP Jeffrey Donaldson
ALL Sorcha Eastwood
SDLP Ally Haydock
NI Cons Gary Hynds
UKIP Alan Love
SF Gary McCleave
2017 share of the vote %
DUP 59.6
UUP 16.8
ALL 11.1
SDLP 7.5
SF 3.5
NI Cons 1
Ind 0.5
Electorate 75,945
Majority 19,229
