The brother of retiring Eighth District Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick has won the popular vote with Republicans in the primary election.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a 42-year-old retired FBI agent from Middletown, bested fellow Republican opponents Andy Warren of Middletown and Dr. Marc Duome of Buckingham Tuesday.
At the Bucks County Republican Party headquarters in Doylestown, Fitzpatrick declared victory shortly after 10 p.m. with only about 20 percent of the votes counted. As of 10:30 p.m., he had a nearly 15,000 vote lead over his competitors, according to data from Bucks and Montgomery County.
“We can all go to bed early—came in second in a winner take all contest. Thank everyone for support, prayer and concern. See you down the road,” Warren said in a Facebook post shortly after 9 p.m.
Fitzpatrick thanked those who worked on his campaign and said his team will “not be outworked” in the general election.
“Everyone here is like an extended family to me,” he said. “We are going to march forward together and we will be successful.”
Fitzpatrick entered the race in January with much fanfare. Within days of his candidacy forming, he quickly moved to become the front runner among the Republicans.
With his roots in Middletown’s Levittown section, Fitzpatrick boasts a solid national security background from his time in FBI. In a recent interview, Fitzpatrick called his job at the FBI, which took him Iraq to work on terrorism operations to California to weed out public corruption, the “greatest job” he ever had.
The Santarsiero campaign has previously called out Fitzpatrick’s on his time spent outside the district. Last week, Fitzpatrick told LevittownNow.com he spent only a few years outside the area and it was during his time serving in the FBI.
Fitzpatrick has also called allegations that he and his brother violated the Hatch Act “ridiculous.”
The campaign for the retired FBI agent said Fitzpatrick will remain “laser-focused on economic growth, defending our homeland, and, confronting corruption in Washington.”