BACKING TRUMP
Abe has backed U.S. President Donald Trump's tough stance toward Pyongyang that all options including military action are on the table. Trump is to visit Japan Nov. 5-7 to reaffirm the leaders' tight ties.
"The situation in the world is not stable in many aspects and I believe the LDP is the only party to rely on," 78-year-old Kyoko Ichida said after voting in the capital.
As voters went to the polls, powerful Typhoon Lan was dumping heavy rain on much of Japan, threatening to lower turnout.
Voting ends at 8 p.m. (11:00 GMT) and media issue exit polls thereafter. Final official results will be early Monday morning.
Abe's move had seemed risky after Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, often floated as a possible first Japanese female premier, launched her conservative Party of Hope.
The Party of Hope absorbed a big chunk of the failed main opposition Democratic Party. But voter enthusiasm soon seemed to wane despite its calls for popular policies such as an exit from nuclear power and a freeze on a planned sales tax rise.
Koike is not running for a lower house seat herself - she will be in Paris for a climate change event on Sunday - and has failed to say whom her party would back for prime minister.
Fish wholesaler Kazuo Takeguchi, 71, said he had had hopes for Koike's party but was disappointed when she decided not to run. Instead, he voted for the Japanese Communist Party, in part because of the cronyism scandals that had eroded Abe's ratings.
"I can't help wonder if you are entitled to do whatever you want to if you are sole strong party," Takeguchi said.
"I want some party to emerge as a force to defeat the LDP," he said, adding, however, that the JCP was unlikely to play that role.
A new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), formed by liberal DP members, is now vying with Koike's party for the top opposition spot, though both will have just a sliver of the LDP's presence if forecasts prove accurate.
