Republican state Rep. Doyle Heffley turned back challenger Christian Bartulovich on Tuesday to keep the 122nd District seat he has held since 2011.

Heffley took 14,628 votes to Bartulovich’s 9,878, according to unofficial Carbon County returns posted at 10:13 p.m. Write-ins drew 46. The margin was 4,750 votes, or about 19 percentage points.

Heffley, 56, of Palmerton, built his margin on Election Day ballots, winning them 12,754 to 7,379. Bartulovich carried the county’s mail-in vote 2,499 to 1,874.

Bartulovich, 37, is a Penn Forest Township supervisor and the township’s vice chairman. He reached the general election ballot on the Democratic line through a write-in campaign in the May primary. Heffley was unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Heffley chairs the House Human Services Committee. He graduated from Lehighton Area High School in 1989, earned an associate degree from Lincoln Technical Institute and spent much of his career in the trucking industry. He previously served on the Lower Towamensing Planning Commission and chaired the Carbon County Republican Committee.

Bartulovich is treasurer of the Carbon County Council of Governments. He worked in health care as an EMT and paramedic before moving into regional operations management. He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Thomas Edison State University and an MBA from Liberty University, and coaches girls varsity soccer at Jim Thorpe.