It wasn’t long into counting when the messages started coming.

Hesitant at first, and then, as the night ticked on, in a torrent, as surprise turned to shock and then fear.

“Is Dutts gone?”

“Do you have any update on Dutts?”

“Did we lose Dickson?”

They didn’t. The Liberal National party held on to the minister’s seat at the last federal election by about 1,500 votes. A couple of blocks, really.

But the scare, on a night filled with Liberal electoral horrors, had come as a surprise. The man who would be leader had almost lost his seat in a fight no one, not even Labor, had even seriously considered to be on the cards.

The battle for Dickson began about 9pm on 2 July 2016. And it has been raging ever since.

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Peter Dutton may not be the most popular man in the party room, but you wouldn’t know it north of the border. The LNP, officially one party in Queensland, by and large adores the former police officer, a hang-up from when soon-to-be former senator Barry O’Sullivan attempted to shape the party, and its candidates, in his mould. Dutton, along with Stuart Robert and Steve Ciobo, is one of the party’s best fundraisers, and remains popular with the Young LNP; a figure who is able to marshal support in an increasingly fractured party.

But all of that means nothing if the voters don’t feel the same way. And so, Dutton’s own “caravan of courage” – the mobile office he has trotted out since 2001– has been back on the road, trying to win back enough votes to keep the swing against both the government and his personal brand at bay.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Damaged glass is removed from the Queensland electorate office of Peter Dutton on 24 August 2018 after vandals hurled pavers during his failed bid to unseat Malcolm Turnbull. Photograph: Darren England/AAP

Dutton’s politics may not have changed, but Dickson has. Those postcodes between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast have attracted more and more young families and professionals, with McMansions and houses with media rooms springing up in the northern suburbs, for the same price as an inner-city two-bedder. Further north you hit Samford, with its “retreats”, country pubs and “give way to horse riders” signs.

Dutton saw the change coming. Before the 2010 election he tried to jump seats to the Gold Coast, where a blue corflute, no matter the face, is enough to win you the electorate. But that was when George Brandis still held sway, and branches will do as branches want – Dutton found himself locked out. So to Dickson he returned.

Dickson’s margin is still so fragile that it almost certainly won’t withstand the national swing to Labor Paul Williams

But relief at change only lasts so long, and Labor, without even really trying, managed to make enough of a dent in Dutton’s margin that suddenly toppling the man-who-could-have-been-prime minister became the little campaign that could.

“It’s ... not great,” an LNP strategist says when asked about the campaign for Dickson.

“We are in trouble. He knows it, we know it, Labor knows it. It’s almost like starting from scratch.”

That’s obvious to those following the campaign from the outside. Paul Williams, a senior politics lecturer at Griffith University, predicts Dutton will lose.

“On a 2% margin, improved slightly in the redistribution from 1.6%, Dickson’s margin is still so fragile that it almost certainly won’t withstand the national swing to Labor, even if that swing – appearing to be about 4% or 5% nationally – were muted in Queensland,” he says.

“But, given the Scott Morrison coup has done little to reverse the Coalition slide in Queensland, the swing north of the Tweed, even in outer metro and regional seats, is likely to be strong.

“With GetUp also campaigning in Dickson, it’s almost certain Dutton will be defeated.

“If and when Queensland federal LNP representation is decimated, defeated MPs and grassroots members will likely blame the state executive for pursuing an arch-conservative strategy that included advocacy for a Dutton move against Malcolm Turnbull.”

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GetUp announced it would be targeting Dickson almost immediately after the last election. The Greens have worked to put in a good showing, and Labor sent Ali France, a United Voice left candidate, out into the field as soon as possible.

There are still those in Labor who question whether a right faction candidate such as Linda Lavarch, who was defeated by France, might have been a wiser choice.

But France, a disability advocate and a local, is clearly campaigning to win. And Labor, still not convinced of victory, but able to see several scenarios where it happens, has thrown its full campaign might behind her bid.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Labor’s candidate for Dickson, Ali France, is a disability advocate and local. Photograph: Darren England/AAP

“We are very much ready for an election in Dickson,” France says.

“We’ve spent the last six months solidly door knocking and talking to voters about the issues that are important to them and the overwhelming feedback is that they want stability and an end to the chaos in Canberra.

“Winning this seat, however, is not going to be easy. Peter Dutton is a formidable campaigner, he’s held this seat for 18 years and he’s boasted of a $650,000 war chest in which to fight this election.

“Our strength is our people. We have an incredible group of local volunteers that is growing every day and we will deliver the biggest field campaign that this seat has ever seen. Our goal is to have had a conversation with every household in Dickson by election day and we are well on our way to achieving that goal.”

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Speaking on background, Labor strategists say they see the Dickson campaign as twofold. Not only are they attempting to keep Dutton in the electorate for as much time as possible, blunting his impact during the wider election campaign, they also believe that for every $1 Labor spends, Dutton is spending double. And that keeps campaign funds away from other areas, where other Coalition MPs are in trouble.

Dutton has been a regular at roads announcements, as he embarks on a campaign those around him have likened to Queensland Labor’s tactics in 2013 – the “I’ll fight for you, no matter who is in government” route – given the Coalition’s unlikely election prospects.

He has also been digging in. Dutton, not the party, has hired Geoffrey Greene to help on his campaign. A former Queensland and South Australian party state director, Greene was best known for his work behind the scenes for John Howard’s campaigns. Then he became best known as the former LNP director who was expelled from the party he helped create during a time of mass internal turmoil, launching a million-dollar-plus lawsuit against the organisation, which he later dropped.

Greene has been part of Dutton’s campaign for almost a year, in a sign, at least to Dutton’s party colleagues, that he is seriously worried about losing the seat, even if outwardly it’s business as usual.

You know what will be better than seeing Dutton in the opposition benches? Not seeing Dutton across the benches at all Dickson Labor campaigner

On the ground and in public, Dutton is doing his best to deflect from GetUp’s campaign, painting it as an outsider’s attempt to disrupt local politics.

“Well Dickson has always been a very close marginal seat,” he said. “In 2007 we won by 217 votes, but people know that GetUp is a front for the Greens.

“The fact is that the Greens don’t support us on border protection, GetUp don’t support us on border protection, but most people in my electorate would see GetUp as a southern outfit run by the Greens and they aren’t going to be told what to do by suits out of the Greens movement in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney.”

But compounding Dutton’s challenge is that he’s not alone among Queensland LNP MPs whose seats are in danger. That’s why Morrison spent part of November travelling across the state, why the Coalition will base its federal campaign office in Brisbane, and why the entire cabinet will hit the sunshine state in the coming days.

Labor has identified eight of the Coalition’s 21 Queensland seat as potentially winnable – Leichhardt, Flynn, Bonner, Petrie, Dickson, Capricornia, Forde and Dawson, with Brisbane considered a maybe. Luke Howarth’s personal popularity in Petrie is expected to withstand any anti-government spin and Warren Entsch’s decision to go round one last time is thought to have saved Leichhardt.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Peter Dutton has been smiling more as part of his bid to soften his image. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

It has the Coalition spread thin and it has taken a while for the LNP, and for Dutton, to catch on to Labor’s local messaging. While tough on border security may play well at a macro level, it’s parking, roads and roundabouts that win votes in Brisbane’s northern suburbs.

That’s meant the man who launched a prime ministerial bid by telling Australia he hoped to be able to show more of his smile, now shares that turtle-who-lost-his-shell bemusement from billboards in his electorate.

The Duttsmobile is back on the road “talking about the local issues”. You want strong borders and a new parking lot? Get you an MP who can do both. But with the state Labor government having stepped in to solve local issues, complete with Labor branding, as often as possible, it hasn’t left Dutton with a lot of ammunition.

And yet, despite two-and-a-half years of campaigning, no one seems sure of whether or not Dickson is done.

“Look, the swing is on, that’s just a fact,” another LNP strategist says.

“He’s got visibility across the country, but it’s not all positive. He’s not as well-known in the electorate, and that’s not all negative. His name is recognisable and that will help. But it’s not that many votes to turn, and Labor and GetUp and the Greens and every union you can think of have been hitting this seat with all they’ve got, and they are enjoying it. He’s not. That’s obvious.”

Labor is holding its cards closer. In a habit established following the 2013 election, campaigners as a whole talk down chances, so that victories, when they occur, seem even bigger.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shadow minister for early childhood education Amanda Rishworth (left), Labor leader Bill Shorten and Ali France on the campaign trail in Brisbane in October. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

“We’re not sure about Dickson and that’s the truth,” one Labor campaigner says.

“It’s nowhere near a sure thing. But it’s closer than [Dutton] would want. We’re keeping him on his toes, and we’re doing it with old-fashioned campaigning. We’ve got the time and the inclination and the resources. If we manage to win the federal election and topple Dutton? That’s just icing for us in Queensland.”

Dutton himself has had to soften his image, now announcing policies, as with the recent proposal for a national sex offender public register, as “not too hard and not too soft”.

The Goldilocks approach to policy is in marked difference to the man who once publicly declared certain news organisations as being “dead” to him, because he didn’t like their reports.

A Dutton under electoral pressure is a Dutton who wants to know what everyone thinks.

The LNP may think Dutton himself is one of the strongest elements to its campaign. But Labor thinks the same thing. Just for their own campaign.

“Has this campaign been perfect? No. No campaign is,” another Labor campaigner says.

“And we may not pull it off. But you know what will be better than seeing Dutton in the opposition benches? Not seeing Dutton across the benches at all. And best of all, it will be for no other reason than he did it himself.”