MADISON, Wis.

Following a brief but bruising campaign, both sides of the recall election targeting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are prepared for a razor-thin margin today as the Republican tries to become the first U.S. governor to successfully fend off a recall effort.

The vote will bring to a conclusion more than a year of turmoil after Walker pushed through a bill stripping workers of collective bargaining rights in an effort to fix a hole in the state budget.

Polls have shown Walker, just 17 months into his term, with a small lead over Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett after a campaign that’s shattered state spending records and further divided an already polarized state. Both candidates worked in a flurry of last-minute stops in the campaign’s final days, all too aware that turnout will be critical.

“I’ve been villainized for a year and a half. We’ve faced a year and a half of assaults on us. My opponent has no plans other than to attack us,” Walker said at a campaign stop Monday, claiming that his agenda has put the state on the right economic track.

Walker said he is focused on capturing voters who have supported him in taking on public-employee unions, while Barrett is trying to capitalize on the anger over Walker’s conservative agenda that began building almost as soon as he took office in January 2011.

“Gov. Walker has divided the state but we will never allow him to conquer the middle class,” Barrett said at an afternoon appearance. He added: “This started out as a grassroots movement and it’s going to end as one.”

The recall effort against Walker began bubbling last year, shortly after the rising Republican star took office. Just a month into his first term, Walker took the state by surprise with a proposal to effectively end collective bargaining rights for most state workers and pay more for health insurance and pension benefits as a tactic to deal with the state’s budget shortfall. The proposal created a firestorm of opposition, and protests drew tens of thousands to the state Capitol.

It didn’t take long for opponents to begin calling for a recall.

The recall petition drive couldn’t officially start until November, months after Walker signed the union changes into the books, because Wisconsin law requires that someone must be in office for at least a year before facing a recall. Organizers hit the streets a week before Thanksgiving and spent two months gathering more than 900,000 signatures — about 360,000 more than were needed to trigger the election. Barrett was chosen as Walker’s opponent in a primary last month.

Now, Walker stands in unique company: He is only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall vote. The other two lost, most recently California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.

Wisconsin’s recall election is a rematch of the 2010 governor’s race in which Walker defeated Barrett by 5 percentage points. A key question will be whether or not Democrats can turn out voters in force, as the unions did during the protests last year.