The other rivals are Shizuka Kamei, 66, a former party policy chief, and Takao Fujii, 60, a former transportation minister.
Koizumi's challengers said that while structural reforms were necessary, they favored more spending to boost the economy.
When campaigning began last week, Koizumi reiterated his pledges to overhaul the government sector. He focused on privatizing the postal services by 2007 and the country's four public road corporations by 2005, both of which have provided support bases for party members.
Other traditional backers of the Liberal Democrats, including the health and construction industries, are lukewarm about him, but are expected to show support to help his party over the opposition Democratic Party. "The Democratic Party's policy would be even more severe to them than Koizumi's," said Jun Iio, a professor of politics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
The trade organizations make up a large chunk of the Liberal Democratic Party's 1.4 million members. Those members will hold 300 votes in Saturday's election, while the party's 357 lawmakers each have one vote. If no one wins a majority, or 329 votes, in the first round, the 357 lawmakers alone will choose from the top two candidates.
Many have criticized Koizumi for buckling to those conservative voices during his first term.
"Structural reforms, structural reforms -- that's what he always says," Mitsuko Tanaka, a 60-year-old housewife, said after listening to the prime minister speak on Sunday. "But it's been two and a half years, and I don't feel that the economy's improving. Stores are closing. Crime's going up because people don't have jobs."
Others, however, said that Koizumi was on the right track, and that resistance inside the party and the long economic slump made rapid change impossible.
"I think he's fulfilled half of his promises," said Takahiro Miyai, 26, a social services worker.
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