HARRISBURG — Republican Carolyn Carluccio has won the GOP nomination for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which is playing a prominent role in settling disputes over voting rights, abortion rights and gun rights in the presidential battleground.

Carluccio, Montgomery County’s president judge and the party-endorsed candidate, won the two-way race. She defeated Patricia McCullough, a Commonwealth Court judge who lost a primary for a high court seat in 2021, after party allies reported spending nearly $1 million to help her beat McCullough.

In Butler County, McCullough received 10,959 votes and Carluccio received 7,221 votes, according to incomplete and unofficial results with all 89 precincts reporting partial results.

In November, Carluccio will face Dan McCaffery, who won the Democratic primary Tuesday.

McCaffery defeated Deborah Kunselman in the two-way race. Both currently sit on the state Superior Court, a statewide appellate body that handles appeals from county courts in criminal and civil cases.

In Butler County, Kunselman received 7,936 votes and McCaffery received 2,164 votes, according to incomplete and unofficial results from the primary with all 89 precincts reporting partial results.

On the campaign trail, McCullough has repeatedly boasted of being the “only judge in 2020 in the presidential election in the entire country” to order a halt to her state’s election certification.

McCullough was ruling in a Republican-backed post-election legal challenge that sought to throw out 2.5 million mail-in ballots — most cast by Democrats — and tilt victory to Donald Trump in the presidential battleground state. The state’s high court quickly overturned McCullough’s order.

McCullough, of Allegheny County, also ran for state Supreme Court in 2021 and lost in the primary. The state party is endorsing Carluccio and party allies have reported spending nearly $1 million to help her beat McCullough.

Democrats currently hold a 4-2 majority on the court, which has an open seat following the death last fall of Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat.

The court has handled a number of hot-button issues over the past few years.

It is currently examining a challenge to a state law that restricts the use of public funds to help women get an abortion as well as Philadelphia’s challenge to a state law that bars it and other municipalities from restricting the sale and possession of guns.

In recent years, the justices rejected a request to invalidate the state’s death penalty law and upheld the constitutionality of the state’s expansive mail-in voting law. The court also turned away challenges to the 2020 election result from Republicans who wanted to keep former President Donald Trump in power, and ruled on a variety of lawsuits over gray areas in the mail-in voting law.

In one 2020 election case, justices ordered counties to count mail-in ballots that arrived up to three days after polls closed, citing delays in mail service caused by disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling spurred an outcry among Republicans, who challenged the decision in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nation’s highest court ultimately declined to take the case. The ballots — nearly 10,000 of them — were never counted in any federal race, including for president, because the election was certified while their fate remained in legal limbo. State elections officials said the votes weren’t enough to change the results of a federal election.

Five candidates were running for two open seats on the Superior Court, from which one judge retired and where another will reach the mandatory retirement age of 75 later this year.

Democrats Jill Beck and Timika Lane captured their party’s nominations.

Both Beck and Lane ran for an open seat on the Superior Court in 2021 but lost — Beck in the primary and Lane in the general election.

On Republican ballots were Harry Smail, a Westmoreland County judge, and Marie Battista, a Clarion County lawyer.

Battista is a former county prosecutor who ran unsuccessfully for Clarion County district attorney in 2019. The result of that race was unavailable as of press time.

For Commonwealth Court, one seat is open after Republican Judge Kevin Brobson was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2021.

On Democratic ballots is Matt Wolf, a Philadelphia Municipal Court judge, was vying against Bryan Neft, a trial lawyer from Pittsburgh.

Republican Megan Martin, who spent more than a decade as parliamentarian of the state Senate, defeated Joshua Prince, a Berks County lawyer best known for taking on gun rights cases.