BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK

Times-Tribune

Jim Bognet held a narrow lead in a field of six candidates in the race for the 8th Congressional District Republican nomination as thousands of uncounted mail-in votes delayed final primary election results Tuesday evening.

Bognet of Hazle Township, a consultant and former Trump administration official, led Teddy Daniels of Wayne County, a decorated Afghanistan War veteran, a former cop and a cannabis industry security consultant, by 400 votes.

They were followed by decorated Afghanistan War veteran Earl Granville of Scott Township; former Hazleton Mayor Mike Marsicano of Hazle Township, also a former state trooper and now a truck driver; Luzerne County Councilman Harry Haas of Kingston, a middle school teacher, and Mike Cammisa of Hazleton, who helps operate a family print shop.

The district consists of all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike counties and parts of Luzerne and Monroe counties.

It was unclear how many votes across the district remain uncounted. Spokesmen for the candidates said they did not expect a final result Tuesday night. Pike and Wayne counties finished counting all their ballots including mail-in votes. Lackawanna, Luzerne and Monroe counties had many mail-in ballots left to count.

The winner will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, who was unopposed for his party’s nomination Tuesday and won once he received the 1,000 votes required for an unopposed candidate. He has more than 24,000.

Bognet said he looked forward to facing Cartwright, whom he views as the lapdog of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“We’re really gratified by the results that we’ve seen. We saw a great amount of support come out all over the district. We have great margins in Luzerne County,” he said. “We had volunteers out at a ton of polling locations. We feel really good where we are now. We will watch the results come in.”

Granville said he would wait until all the mail-in ballots are counted before conceding or claiming victory. He remained hopeful, he said.

“Right now, we just can’t tell. We have all those mail-in ballots,” Granville said. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Efforts to reach Daniels were unsuccessful.