RICHMOND -- After months of hostile crossfire, Virginia's major-party candidates for governor are nearing the finish line of a long campaign with fundamental messages that define the stakes in Tuesday's election.

To Democrat Tim Kaine, the contest amounts to a choice between continuing the work of outgoing Gov. Mark Warner and handing control of state government to those who opposed bipartisan efforts to fix Virginia's once-shaky finances.

"The state is going in the right direction," Kaine said Wednesday.

To Republican Jerry Kilgore, the election represents a choice between a classic, red-state conservative and a liberal who has supported a statewide tax increase, voiced opposition to the death penalty and still dared to campaign as a moderate.

"We're talking about who can you trust to stay true to the promises," Kilgore said Wednesday, as he greeted customers at a Chesterfield County gas station.

Kaine and Kilgore have spent the better part of the past four years preparing for Tuesday's contest. Kaine was elected lieutenant governor in 2001 and Kilgore was elected attorney general, making them instant favorites for their respective parties' gubernatorial nominations. Since they began campaigning full time early this year, they have waged a duel that likely will be remembered more for its bitter tone than for its clash of ideas.

Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said the highly negative campaign has overshadowed Kaine's and Kilgore's positive virtues and likely turned off many voters.

"The amazing thing is that they have permitted their consultants to run a vicious and nasty race," Sabato said.

Polls suggest that this could be the closest governor's race since 1989, when Democrat Douglas Wilder defeated Republican Marshall Coleman by a margin so narrow that a recount was needed to confirm the outcome. A survey conducted last week by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research indicated that the contest between Kaine and Kilgore is virtually dead even. The candidates themselves expect the race to be decided by the effectiveness of their voter turnout operations.

Independent candidate Russ Potts, an outspoken state senator from Winchester, could play the role of spoiler in a close race between Kaine and Kilgore. Potts all but conceded defeat in a news conference last week, but said "we're going to be a factor" in Tuesday's outcome.

Since the emergence of a viable two-party political system in Virginia, voters have never ousted the party occupying the governor's mansion after just one term. The state constitution prohibits governors from seeking re-election, so Warner has hit the campaign trail to promote Kaine as his logical successor. Kaine hopes to benefit from his association with the popular outgoing governor, who continues to attract national attention as a possible 2008 presidential candidate.

Kaine, 47, has cast himself as Warner's partner in an effort to stabilize the state's finances, improve the performance of its bureaucracy and reduce the partisan bickering in Richmond. The lieutenant governor points to the state's perfect bond rating, its surging economy and the performance of its public schools as evidence that Virginia is on the right track.

"Either we all work together to move this state forward or we slip backward into the bitter partisanship and fiscal recklessness of the past," Kaine said when he kicked off his campaign in Roanoke on March 16. "Simply put, we can't go back."

Kilgore, 44, has cast himself as a conservative in the mold of his political mentor, U.S. Sen. George Allen, a former governor who tapped Kilgore to serve in his Cabinet. Kilgore has emphasized his tough stands on law-and-order issues, his unqualified support for gun rights and the death penalty, and his staunch opposition to taxes.

Kilgore opposed the 2004 tax increase that became the defining point of Warner's administration. And he has vowed to oppose any future tax increases that are not approved by voters, saying repeatedly: "I trust the people."

"I'm not going to change my views after I get elected," Kilgore said last week. "People aren't going to have to hire lobbyists and stuff like that to know where I'm going to stand on an issue. I'm pretty much predictable right down the line."

Kaine and Kilgore opened their campaigns by trumpeting competing plans to provide real estate tax relief for homeowners. But local governments showed no enthusiasm for the proposals and the candidates had effectively stopped talking about them by the time voters truly tuned in to the race.

The lack of a defining issue created a fertile environment for a flood of attack ads that have saturated the airwaves. None got more attention than Kilgore ads in which the relatives of murder victims called attention to Kaine's opposition to the death penalty. One spot featured the father of a murder victim accusing Kaine of saying he would oppose the execution of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Kaine angrily rebuked the ad and repeated his promise to allow executions despite his personal objection to capital punishment.

Potts complained last week that traditional wedge issues have received too much attention during the campaign and that more pressing matters, such as transportation funding, have been ignored.

"This election is not about God, guns, gays, the death penalty and illegal immigrants," Potts said in a Monday news conference. "Looming ahead of us is a crisis of the most major proportions in transportation."

Kaine and Kilgore actually have had heated debates over their competing transportation plans, with each attacking the other's proposal as ineffective. Kilgore has said he will push for the creation of regional authorities to plan and finance some road projects and direct dollars from the state's general operating fund for transportation programs.

Kaine said he wants more coordination between transportation and land-use planning, but will oppose any tax increases for transportation until lawmakers guarantee that road and transit dollars won't get diverted to other programs.

Kilgore insisted last week that Kaine will push for an increase in the gasoline tax, saying: "He's going to go right back after the gas tax and any number of tax increases to fund all of his programs."

Kaine scoffed at the charge and said: "I find it interesting to have someone attack me on trust when his own ads -- again and again and again -- demonstrated that he really doesn't understand the line between truth and fabrication."

The governor's race could affect the outcomes in the contests for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Polls indicate that a large segment of voters remains undecided. In the lieutenant governor's race, Republican Bill Bolling of Hanover County is running against Democrat Leslie Byrne of Fairfax County. In the contest for attorney general, Republican Bob McDonnell of Virginia Beach faces Democrat Creigh Deeds of Bath County.

Republicans will continue to control the General Assembly after Tuesday's elections. All 100 seats in the House of Delegates are up for election and Republicans now occupy 60 of them.

Democrats hope to increase their membership from 38 to 41, a feat that would give them an additional seat on committees under the House's power-sharing rules.