A Republican state legislator has won an eastern North Carolina congressional seat and will succeed the late GOP Rep. Walter Jones Jr.

Physician Greg Murphy defeated Democrat Allen Thomas and two other candidates on Tuesday in the 3rd Congressional District race.

Murphy is a state House member who survived a 17-candidate Republican primary in April and a July runoff. Jones died in February after 24 years in Congress.

The GOP-leaning district extends from the Virginia border and Outer Banks to the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune, and inland to Greenville. President Donald Trump won the district vote comfortably in 2016, and Murphy said at a Trump rally that he would have the “president’s back” if elected.

Thomas is a former Greenville mayor who questioned Murphy’s “blind loyalty” to Trump.