A Portage project manager for a construction firm decisively beat a Porter Township resident for the Republican nomination for the 1st District seat in the U.S. House.

Joel Phelps, took 17,158 votes or 59 percent of the ballots cast district-wide, to Dave Wenger’s 11,947 or 41 percent.

Phelps, 35, will face Democrat incumbent Pete Visclosky, who ran unopposed.

Phelps told the Chesterton Tribune, in a candidate questionnaire completed earlier this spring, that among his initiatives, if elected, would be to repeal “Obamacare”—Phelps’ term—create manufacturing jobs by enacting a 0-percent tax for the next four years, pass a balanced budget amendment, and tax Chinese goods “to level the filed for American workers.”

Phelps called the national debt the greatest threat to the future of the U.S. and characterized jobs and manufacturing as his highest priority.