It's personal, Joyce says of New England

Barnaby Joyce says Tony Windsor is only contending for the seat of New England because of a personal vendetta against him.

The deputy prime minister, after spending Tuesday campaigning around new parts of his northern NSW seat, said Mr Windsor wanted the electorate back because he didn't like him.

"I think it's definitely personal - you don't make accosting comments unless it's personal," Mr Joyce told AAP in Merriwa.

The Nationals leader pointed to Twitter posts directed at him from the former independent MP as proof.

He accused Mr Windsor of type-casting him as "some mad right wing ideologue" and "one of the crazies".

"He doesn't like me.

"It didn't take long for this campaign to get nasty, with scratchy-scratchy stuff appearing."

Mr Joyce, who's declared himself the underdog in the fight for New England, suspected Mr Windsor was campaigning to "be a spoiler and to tie up resources".

"I feel he's become cranky.

"At the start he did a good job and made people stand up and now I just don't know what his narrative is."

However, Mr Joyce said he was confident in keeping the seat.

Voters had yet to forgive Mr Windsor for supporting the previous Labor minority government and would not be easily willing to give up the deputy prime minister's office being based locally.

"People have moved on," Mr Joyce said.

"It's like ... if Michael Clarke came up and said 'I want to be captain again' and people are saying 'no, we've all moved on'."