By Mark Kenny

A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.

After Australian voters fired John Howard in 2007 even removing him from Parliament, shattered Liberals fumbled about for a replacement.

Peter Costello, the presumptive successor, ruled himself out and would quit later that term.

Among the second-string options were Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull (only just starting his second parliamentary term) and initially, Tony Abbott. Amazingly, all three would get the gig before the next election!

In the press gallery, there was some mirth at Abbott's impecunious tilt as scribes mused that his attack-dog style would make for colourful politics. A euphemism for calamitous and probably short-lived.

This was a common view within Rudd Labor also.

Yet it was Abbott who would eventually seize the Liberal leadership, panic Labor's caucus into dumping a first-term PM, drive Julia Gillard into minority after just one term and then comprehensively defeat a rehired Kevin Rudd in 2013.

The point of this history? Underestimation. It is one of the deadliest and yet commonest mistakes in politics.

It is usually born of the hubristic delusion that an election victory was a personal vote of affection for the PM.

If ever true, the last time was probably 42 years ago when Bob Hawke's popularity was stratospheric.

Nobody sees numbers like that anymore, just as nobody should have any illusions about what drove Labor's 2022 result: Scott "not-my-fault" Morrison.

A fascinating attribute of the current election contest, in light of this, is that both major parties are now led by men who can claim to have been underestimated by their own sides and rejected as unelectable.

Anthony Albanese has said so explicitly. Both he and Peter Dutton have felt the burn personally from colleagues.

After Rudd's demise, it was Labor's turn to find a new leader. Albanese won a rank-and-file ballot but lost to Bill Shorten in the caucus leg of Labor's dual selection system.

The overlooked Albanese dismissed thoughts of retiring but would have to wait two frustrating terms before desperate colleagues would draft him in 2019.

The previous year, Peter Dutton had launched a daring raid on Turnbull's listing premiership only to cede the inside running to the smarmy Morrison. It was clear that Turnbull was finished but moderate and marginal seat Liberals couldn't risk it. If the answer was Dutton, they concluded, the question must have been something crazy like, "how can we frighten more voters away?"

History is an equation that only tallies when you read it backwards.

It is a piquant irony that Morrison's "miracle" 2019 election win is the reason that the two parties and their leaders have wound up where they are now - duking it out for the prime ministership with one of them already there and the other, well placed to take it. This time or next.

Election 2025, then, is a contest between the unloved and the unelectable. Popular they are not. It was considered a breakthrough recently when Albanese drew level with Dutton on net approval ratings.

Both sat at minus-6.

Labor's 32.6 per cent primary vote in 2022 was a record low for a winning side but enough after preferences to secure a wafer-thin two-seat majority.

Polls suggest Labor's primary support has only softened since then - perhaps going as low as 25 per cent according to Resolve in the Nine newspapers in February.

It may have rebounded in recent weeks but time was that Labor believed a primary vote with a "4" in front of it was needed to be competetive.

Leadership popularity however, is not a pre-requisite for success.

The deeply unfashionable Howard had been the punchline for jokes in the 1980s during his first failed stint as opposition leader. He bravely predicted the times would come to suit him and a decade later, they did.

Abbott was never very popular but still scythed 18 seats off Labor in 2013 - a quantum not unlike that required of Dutton if he is to achieve a majority on May 3rd.

Of course, a complicating factor in understanding the field of possibilities now is the steady erosion of the major party blocs as voters flock to third parties and independents.

That said, scepticism is advised around the automatic assumption driving many analyses that the crossbench will inevitably swell again.

In many important respects, the 2022 election provided unique conditions for the small-P protestant wave that swept through the Liberal heartland. Surviving a second election is a crucial test for community independents and will establish whether the 2022 changes were structural or more situational.

A plausible result is five teals, where currently there are seven, and just one or two Greens, where currently there are four. This is pure guesswork of course but is more likely than the fear-mongering claims of a chaotic parliament beholden to trendy-indies and special interests.

Labor began the 47^th Parliament confident of controlling the narrative, legislating its agenda and bedding down reforms in a second term. Dutton would come across as too narrow and hardline for moderate Australian tastes. Scary even.

Maybe that will prove correct or maybe the economic times have come to suit him, also?

Either way, inside Labor, he's not being underestimated any more.

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.