Politicians have been known to warn each other against parking tanks on their lawns. For the Labour candidate in one of the most keenly anticipated May mayoral elections, the phrase has added bite: Chris McEwan has hundreds of them. He shows photos of a room at his house in Darlington with an astonishing collection of small model tanks, all neatly laid out. His grandchildren think it’s a toyshop. “It’s a throwback to when I was a child, really,” he said. “I believe in peace.” McEwan is Labour’s candidate in Tees Valley, standing against Ben Houchen, the Conservative who has been in the job for seven years and is defending a whopping majority – taking 73% of the vote against Labour’s 28% in 2020. Winning would be quite something for Labour, buoying the party’s confidence even more for the next general election. It would also raise further questions in Tory ranks about Rishi Sunak’s leadership. If Labour wins, it will surely be a reflection of the national mood. The Tories’ popularity is at its lowest for more than 40 years. People in northern England do not feel levelled up. Many people would like the poll to be a verdict on Lord Houchen’s stewardship of Teesworks, the flagship regeneration project on the site of the former steelworks at Redcar. An independent report into Teesworks was damning. It said the vast project had been excessively secretive and taxpayers were not being guaranteed value for money or transparency. Crucially, it said there was no evidence to support allegations of corruption or illegality raised under parliamentary privilege by the Middlesbrough MP, Andy McDonald. McEwan, in an interview with the Guardian, said a mayoral priority for him would be to start projecting “openness and honesty. Particularly openness because things have been very closed and tight.” He stressed he had never used the word “corruption” in relation to Teesworks, but said it was “beyond belief” that there were 28 recommendations for change in the report. He also said that Teesworks was not the unadulterated success story that government ministers claimed. He sees it as a missed opportunity. “It is very hard to work out what has actually happened but from what I can see and what I know, the original plan for Teesworks was much more ambitious. The plan has been changed.” How much the Teesworks report influences voters remains to be seen. When the Guardian canvassed views in Darlington town centre, no one raised it as an issue. Potholes, on the other hand, were complained about over and over, and they are the reason why the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was comically pictured peering into one when he visited Darlington a year ago. Last week Sunak returned to Teesside for a visit that will mainly be remembered for his squirming laughter when asked for a date for the general election in a BBC Radio Tees interview. McEwan is onboard on the potholes issue, but blames Tory cuts. “My spring broke in my car about four weeks ago,” he said. “I’ve never had a spring break in a car, ever. “In Darlington we’ve got £2m for highway repairs. Our backlog, after 14 years of Tories slashing budgets and seven years of a Tory mayor focusing on flagship schemes rather than bread and butter … our backlog is £12.5m. “You multiply that across the Tees Valley and you could be looking at a backlog bill of £50m-£60m. We have got to be ambitious around infrastructure, but we’ve got to ride another horse and that’s making sure we get the basics right.” McEwan is amiable and funny, but also clearly serious and passionate when he talks about his priorities for skills and getting an integrated transport system across the Tees Valley, which covers the five local authorities of Middlesbrough, Darlington, Stockton, Redcar and Hartlepool. He was raised in Middlesbrough in a Labour family. “I can remember Edward Heath visiting in the 1970s and my parents going out with placards,” he said. After university, McEwan worked as a manager in the NHS and has been a Darlington councillor since 1999. He is trying to usurp a candidate also raised in the Tees Valley who is heralded by national Tories as a model for how a mayor should be. In July last year he became a peer in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list. Houchen is popular – in stark contrast to the Tory party nationally. June Shepherd, a pensioner, said: “He’s done a lot for us over the last few years. I’d vote for him but I wouldn’t vote for the Tories. They’re rubbish. They’ve done nothing for us, we’re forgotten about.” Her friend Irene Chilton agreed. “I think he’s the best of the bunch. He has done things, hasn’t he, and anything that brings jobs is a good thing.” There are only three politicians standing in the election, with the Liberal Democrats represented by Simon Thorley. A problem for all of them is how many people even know there is a mayoral election. “No, sorry,” said a retired library caretaker, Irene Joy. “I’ve not heard of Ben Houchen.” “I just haven’t heard of him, so I can’t say anything about him really,” said Sara Gray, a karate instructor. “But if you want my opinions on the state of the country, yes, I’ve got those: it’s crap.” Asked about the mayoral election, John Yeomans, out walking his labradoodle, Lulu, said: “I didn’t know it was happening. What powers does the mayor have?” When told Houchen had been mayor for seven years, he said: “Wow. Well he certainly hasn’t got his message over to me.” Yeomans is a Green supporter, but there is no Green candidate after the environmental campaigner Sally Bunce pulled out last week. The party said: “Sadly, the withdrawal was timed so that we did not have time to stand an alternative candidate. We apologise to everybody who wanted to vote Green at this election.” Those Green votes may help Labour, as will the tangible antipathy to the Tories. For Riley, 18, and friend Lucian, 17, life is harder than it should be because of Tory culture wars. “I’m gay and trans … I would never vote Conservative,” said Riley. “My voice is not being heard.” Lucian agreed: “The problem is the two-party red versus blue system. We should all be united against the Conservatives. As a trans male I don’t feel safe under Tory rule – listen to Rishi Sunak’s rants about what he thinks a man and a woman is. Look at what he said in front of Brianna Ghey’s mother … it was disgusting.” It is impossible for Houchen to get away from the fact he is standing for the Conservatives. He has been called the “Johnson of the north”. His dog is called Boris. McEwan’s naming logic for pets is more straightforward. His cat is called Kitty, because she’s a cat, he said, and his dog is called Molly, because she’s a collie.