Democrats took the majority of the row offices in Monroe County Tuesday, unseating longtime incumbents in unofficial results.

For the 4-year term of controller, Erik Diemer received 16,697 votes to unseat Republican Marlo Merhige, who had 15,692 votes.

Diemer, who attended East Stroudsburg University for a degree in business management, opened a beekeeping business and grew up in his family’s businesses, Pocono Soap, and Kitchen Chemistry.

He said before the election, “I have seen changes in Monroe County over the last two decades, and I think it is time that we have leadership who has a vision for the future and has the energy to make improvements for the better.”

He added, “I see myself keeping a close eye on the money coming out of the county, spending time finding grants to help cover the costs of services and improvements to the county.”

Newcomer Kate Best, running on the Democratic ticket, defeated Republican incumbent Josephine Ferro for the register of wills/recorder of deeds position. Best received 17,277 votes to Ferro’s 15,242 votes.

Best, who has a real estate license and worked as a paralegal, said her goal would be to ensure the community has easy access to their recorded documents.

She said she would improve access by modernizing online programs and forming local partnerships to bring access to low or no cost estate services.

In a race divided by just a few hundred votes, longtime Republican office holder George Warden is the unofficial winner of the prothonotary and clerk of courts seat, defeating Democrat John C. Huddleston. Warden garnered 16,549 votes to defeat Huddleston, who had 16,106 votes.

“We have over twenty three million (23,000,000) pages of documents scanned and permanently preserved,” Warden said. “In the next four years I look forward to completing our ‘paper on demand’ project and going paperless.”