McAnulty was in Dannevirke on Sunday, with Palmerston North MP Iain Lees-Galloway and a campaign team to knock on the doors of 300 voters.
"I've tried to demonstrate how I want to be as an MP, with street meetings and door knocking," Mr McAnulty said.
"These are the best ways to understand the needs and represent them in Parliament."
Mr Lees-Galloway said the Jacinda (Ardern) effect applied everywhere.
"This campaign feels very different in a way I've never seen before," he said.
"There's an enthusiasm for what Labour has to offer that I haven't seen in over a decade."
However, Mr McAnulty did concede there were questions being asked about Labour's proposed water tax.
"Once I have a conversation and voters realise I wouldn't support a policy which would affect farmers, they're happy," he said.
But New Zealand First deputy leader Mark has told the Dannevirke News he's receiving strong support from the rural community in the electorate and he isn't in favour of a water tax because it will increase the cost of food production.
"Any increase in cost to farmers or food producers will immediately be transferred to families through the increase in the prices they will pay for food at the supermarket," he said.
"It is clear to me that rural New Zealand is not only being unfairly hammered by the anti-farming lobby under the guise of protecting the environment, it is now being demonised by Labour and the Greens in order to increase their vote in populous areas of metropolitan New Zealand such as Auckland.
"These relentlessly negative attacks on rural New Zealand are deliberate, they are populist and they are unfortunately having an increasingly impact because the National Party is not only weak and clearly just as focused on appeasing the metropolitan Auckland vote as Labour.
"This behaviour has created a divide between rural and metropolitan New Zealand.
"The water tax, threats by Labour to put agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme, coupled with the total imbalance over government funded infrastructure, has widened the town and country divide into a chasm."
National's Alastair Scott is in the Tararua campaigning again today, with the latest polls showing his party has a slight lead over Labour.