Gordon Marburger

ADAMS TWP — Gordon Marburger said Thursday that his campaign to unseat incumbent state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe would have been a “slam dunk” if his name had appeared on the ballot.

He also said that he is not ruling out challenging Metcalfe again.

Marburger waged a write-in campaign to win the Republican nomination for the 12th District. The state Supreme Court ruled him off the ballot less than a month before the May 20 primary because his financial interest statements weren’t filed on time.

The high court overturned a ruling by a lower court that ruled Marburger could stay on the ballot.

It’s not clear how many write-in votes Marburger got, but it is clear that Metcalfe won the primary by receiving 55 percent of the votes. The rest of the votes went to write-in candidates, although there’s no way to tell just how many of those went to Marburger.

That’s because officials with the county’s Elections Bureau will not count the write-in votes to determine how many Marburger received. That is standard practice because Metcalfe won the race, and that result wouldn’t change knowing how many votes went to Marburger.

Despite that fact, Marburger is confident the results would have been much different if his name had been on the ballot.

“It would have been a slam dunk here if the court didn’t screw up,” Marburger said. “They really overstepped their bounds with overturning a certified ballot.

“At some point they have to be held accountable, although because it’s the Supreme Court, they won’t be.”

Marburger said he plans to see how people vote in the Nov. 4 election when Metcalfe will face Democratic challenger Lisa Zucco.

If Metcalfe wins, Marburger said he’ll seriously start considering another run.

“We’ll see what 18 months bring,” he said. “But if I decide to do it, I know he is going (to lose) because of the impressive write-in campaign we had. We’ll think about it more down the road.”

Marburger also blasted Metcalfe for running a “totally negative” campaign that at times was “very disturbing.”

The Mars School Board member also said he was pleased with the fact that the two candidates were “virtually tied” in polling locations in Cranberry Township.

“But I lost in my own backyard, which is a little disappointing,” Marburger said of Adams Township.

Regardless of the results, Marburger said Thursday he is “very happy” with the way voters supported him. It would have been much different had his name actually appeared on the ballot, he said.

“I think it was a very impressive showing for a write-in campaign,” he said. “I was impressed, even though we were on the losing side, being that close to beating an incumbent.”

The 12th District covers Adams, Clinton, Cranberry, Forward, Middlesex and Penn townships as well as Callery, Mars, Seven Fields and Valencia.