A Republican from Laurel Run has won the party’s nomination for the state 121st House District through write-in votes.
Dino Disler, 65, amassed 651 write-ins, according to unofficial results posted Thursday on the Luzerne County election results webpage. He needed only 300.
Disler will face Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, 78, the Wilkes-Barre Democrat who has held the seat since he was first elected in 2006.
Efforts to reach Disler and Pashinski were unsuccessful.
Pashinski was unopposed for the Democratic nomination, and Republicans had no candidate on the ballot.
With Luzerne County trending Republican in the last decade, Republicans targeted Pashinski for the last several elections. He easily turned back his challengers in a district that still has more than five Democrats for every three Republicans.
Republicans sought candidates to put on the ballot for months but failed to find one. That happened even though the conservative outside group, Commonwealth Leaders Fund, ran weeks of television commercials before the deadline for filing nominating petitions to get on the ballot. The commercials ripped Pashinski as a do-nothing legislator.
The district includes the city of Wilkes-Barre, Bear Creek Village and Laurel Run boroughs, and Bear Creek, Buck, Plains and Wilkes-Barre townships.
