SMITHFIELD — Delegate William K. “Bill” Barlow (D-Smithfield) defeated Republican challenger Stan Clark Tuesday and was re-elected to the House of Delegates, representing the 64th district.

Preliminary results from the State Board of Elections shows Barlow received 13,159 votes, 50.7 percent of votes cast and Clark received 12,132 votes, nearly 47 percent of votes cast. Albert Burckard, who ran on the Independent Green Party ticket, received 623 votes, or about 2.4 percent of the votes cast.

“I think the message is that our supporters feel like I am doing a good job and they wanted to send somebody back who has a lot of experience,” Barlow said Tuesday night from his campaign headquarters in Smithfield. “I think they wanted to send someone back who would help us through these tough times.”

Barlow said the top of the ticket created a strong undertow that lowered his margin of victory. Republican Bob McDonnell beat Democrat Creigh Deeds handily and was declared the winner soon after the polls closed at 7 p.m.

“We’re grateful for our supporters for helping us win in a very difficult election climate,” Barlow said. “I’m very thankful for the vote tonight and the vote of confidence in me.

I’ll go to Richmond and do the very best I can to justify their faith in me.”

Challenger Stan Clark was unable to be reached Tuesday night.

“First of all, I want to congratulate Bill Barlow,” Independent Green candidate Albert Burckard said. “I think Stan Clark did very well. I campaigned for both of them today. I spent the morning in Williamsburg campaigning for Stan, and some of the afternoon in Zuni campaigning for Bill. I hope that helped both of them.”

Asked why he campaigned for both of his opponents, Burckard chuckled, “I didn’t want to get elected. I was running only for my light rail effort, and I respect both of those candidates. I’m happy to see Bill re-elected.”