CRANBERRY TWP — Adams Township Republican Gordon Marburger was upbeat on Thursday as he campaigned door-to-door, searching for votes in next month’s primary election. He sat down, took out his phone, and thought for a second about the last time he was here.

Marburger’s bad memories of two years ago are tempered by what he views as the upside. Despite a major fumble that cost him a spot on that year’s ballot, he’s proved to himself that there’s an appetite within the party for change in the 12th District.

“If we had only got twenty-five percent last time, I wouldn’t be here,” said Marburger.

Voters in Butler County won’t see many contested races on their ballots when polls open at 7 a.m. on April 26, but in Pennsylvania’s 12th House district the Republican primary race is shaping up to be a doozie.

It’s a reprisal of a contest from 2014 that voters might be familiar with — Marburger versus incumbent Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalfe — with a twist that could ultimately prove important.

This time Marburger appears to have properly filed the financial interest statements that resulted in him being kicked off the ballot two years ago by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

It was a mistake that Marburger, in 2014, said ultimately cost him what was a hotly-contested and “ugly” primary between the two Republicans. Marburger won 45 percent of the vote in a long-shot write-in campaign, but ultimately Metcalfe prevailed with 55 percent. It was the tightest margin of victory in Metcalfe’s 18-year career as a member of the state House.

April’s primary is likely to produce the eventual general election winner in November, with the district leaning heavily Republican. In 2014 Metcalfe cruised to a landslide victory in November over Democrat challenger Lisa Zucco.

Metcalfe — a U.S. Army veteran and former engineer who has staked out positions on taxes, gun rights, gay marriage, abortion, immigration and unions that have made him a controversial icon for social and fiscal conservatives — said that nothing’s changed for him this time around.

“My objective ... is to continue my efforts to protect taxpayers,” Metcalfe said. “I think the government spends too much and takes too much from taxpayers to sustain that unreasonable level of spending.”

Metcalfe — who has pledged to never vote for any tax increase, ever — pairs that fiscal conservatism with hard-right stances on everything from gun rights to immigration.

In 2015 Metcalfe sponsored a bill to impeach embattled Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, and was one of the most vocal opponents to tax increases proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf during the state’s protracted budget impasse. Supporters say his fiscal conservatism resonates with them, even when it results in him refusing to help constituents.

Don Rodgers, a Cranberry Township real estate developer who donated to Metcalfe’s campaign in 2015, said the representative’s refusal to support him on grants for several of his projects resonated positively with him. Rodgers said he appreciates Metcalfe’s adherence to principle.

“He’s the same way, whether it’s with local governments, individuals, corporations; his position is always the same,” said Rodgers. “Daryl cannot be bought.”

Those principled positions can also create detractors who object to what they say is Metcalfe’s focus on “spectacle” rather than getting things done in Harrisburg.

In recent years Metcalfe has sponsored or co-sponsored unsuccessful legislation in the House to defund Planned Parenthood, enact a Voter ID law, so-called Right-to-Work laws, and various bills aimed at combating illegal immigration and directing police officers to verify the status of “suspected illegal aliens.”

In 2013, Metcalfe and a group of colleagues made national news by using a procedural measure to keep state Rep. Brian Sims, D-Philadelphia, who is openly gay, from making remarks on the House floor after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Metcalfe told a local TV affiliate that he blocked Sims’ comments because they would be a violation of “God’s law.”

“Daryl’s become sort of a spectacle,” said Madelynn Barkley, Marburger’s daughter and the treasurer of his campaign committee. “It’s embarrassing. It doesn’t reflect well on the people of our area.”

Gordon Marburger, a fourth-generation farmer who served for years as a member of the Mars School Board and is a trustee at Butler County Community College, says Metcalfe’s conduct has rendered him ineffective in Harrisburg.

“I think he’s (Metcalfe) alienated the people of the 12th District and the representatives in Harrisburg,” Marburger said. “I think he’s dropped the ball dealing with 12th district issues; and even if he has a good suggestion (in the House), he’s alienated so many people,” that he doesn’t get cooperation.

Another common critique by Marburger supporters is that Metcalfe hasn’t done enough for his own district. The 12th District includes Adams, Clinton, Cranberry, Forward, Middlesex and Penn townships, and Callery, Mars, Seven Fields and Valencia.

“I don’t think he’s (Metcalfe) done anything for the community,” said Joan Chew, a Republican who served as Butler County treasurer for 16 years and a county commissioner for two, before stepping down to battle a diagnosis of cancer.

“Daryl is one of these people that takes every advantage of every dime that’s out there. I think it’s time that we had someone that is more involved in the community,” Chew said.

In 2015 Metcalfe took $13,122 in per diem payments, according to annual reports from the state Office of the Comptroller. That’s more than the $11,354 he took in 2014, but not among the leaders in per diem payouts for lawmakers representing Butler County.

Metcalfe called the notion that he is out-of-step with voters in his district a ludicrous argument that is frequently manufactured by his opponents during election season.

“The only way that my opponents over the last 10 years have thought they had a chance to defeat me is to try and create some fallacy that a state representative has to act like a local mayor,” Metcalfe said. “I’m elected to represent my constituents in state government.”

In addition to opposing Wolf’s budget, Metcalfe, who is the chairman of the House State Government Committee, also has advanced a bill to reduce the size of the state legislature. So far in 2016 he has announced his intention to introduce a bill that would increase the penalties for public employees who fail to properly file statements of financial interest.

That kind of legislative work resonates with voters like Larry Plowman of Butler, who donated to Metcalfe’s campaign in 2015. Plowman said he supported Metcalfe for his work opposing tax increases and trying to remove Kane from office.

“He thinks like the common people rather than the politicians,” Plowman said. “I believe that he’s the guy that’s for the people. That’s not a bad mark against Mr. Marburger, but Daryl’s been in there and he’s been doing a great job.”

Marburger, too, has supporters that say they’re for him but not necessarily against Metcalfe. Jennifer Linn, a Butler-based lawyer who owns and operates a law firm says she’s supporting Marburger after serving with him on the BC3 board of trustees and seeing his support for local transportation and agricultural issues, like the recent budget-related funding scare for Penn State Extension offices.

“I think that Gordon is more connected to the 12th District, whereas his opponent is more connected to Harrisburg,” Linn said.