Incumbent Democratic State Rep. Joseph Preston squeaked out a narrow victory over challenger Ed Gainey by fewer than 100 votes in unofficial results.

The final total with all precincts counted was 3,253 for Mr. Preston and 3,157 for Mr. Gainey, a difference of 96 votes.

"It wasn't easy," Mr. Preston said this morning. "When you consider this guy has been running for two years and we were running for three weeks, I think we did all right. Of course, we could have done better, but we did all right."

Mr. Preston was referring to Mr. Gainey being removed from the ballot for having improper signatures on campaign petitions when he tried to challenge Mr. Preston two years ago. A judge removed Mr. Gainey from the ballot.

Mr. Preston, who will have no Republican opposition in the fall, is seeking his 13th term. He represents the 24th District, centered in East Liberty.

Although the results are unofficial, Mr. Preston said they are unlikely to change because of the county's new electronic voting machines. With the lever machines used in previous years, it was easy for poll workers to misread numbers on election night and have errors corrected in the official count, but now the results are read electronically, which should mean fewer human errors.

Absentee ballots haven't been counted yet, but it is unlikely there would be a large amount of them for either candidate. Results remain unofficial until certified by the state.

A third candidate, William Anderson, got 516 votes.

Mr. Gainey, a community activist and former aide to former Pittsburgh mayor Tom Murphy, could not be reached for comment.

First Published: May 17, 2006, 4:00 a.m.