Four North Allegheny school board incumbents, running as a group, appear to have retained their seats, all earning nearly twice as many votes as challenger and former district administrator Kathy Roppa.

According to unofficial results, incumbents Linda Bishop, Daniel Hubert, Ralph Pagone and Thomas Schwartzmier were each ahead of Ms. Roppa by at least 2,000 votes.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, the candidates received 23 percent, 22.25 percent, 21.72 and 20.93 percent of the votes, respectively.

"Congratulations to all of them," said Ms. Roppa, of McCandless. According to the unofficial results, she received 11.88 percent of all votes cast in the race.

It was Mr. Schwartzmier who faced the most serious challenge from Ms. Roppa.

In last spring's primary election, Ms. Bishop, Mr. Hubert and Mr. Pagnone secured both Republican and Democratic nominations on Tuesday's ballot.

Mr. Schwartzmier also cross-filed, but won only the Republican nomination. Ms. Roppa, the second highest vote-getter in the primary, took the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Schwartzmier, who would have lost his seat had Ms. Roppa won, said she was a good opponent and that he was pleasantly surprised by his team's strong win.

"I'm shocked by the margin," he said. "I thought she ran a very good campaign."

This was Ms. Roppa's first bid for public office. She is a North Allegheny graduate, former assistant superintendent with the district and is now the assistant superintendent of the Neshannock Area School District in Lawrence County.

Mr. Schwartzmier said the outcome of the race was hard to predict throughout election day, but that he and the others on the ticket were pleased with the result.

"We're all pretty happy about it," he said.

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