COURTHOUSE — A day after handily winning the 6th District Republican primary, Congressman Jim Gerlach told reporters his Democratic opponent in the House race, Manan Trivedi, was too liberal for the district.

Gerlach defeated GOP challenger Patrick Henry Sellers with about 82 percent of the vote. Trivedi, a Berks County physician who led a medical unit in Iraq, won in Tuesday’s primary against Douglas Pike.

In a conference call Wednesday, Gerlach called Trivedi "out of step with the mainstream” of 6th District voters and "very liberal.” When asked if it mattered that Trivedi hailed from Berks County, the House incumbent said that was not a significant factor.

"It’s not geography, it’s ideology that’s going to determine this race,” Gerlach said.

Trivedi supported the federal stimulus spending and health care overhaul, two programs met with disfavor by a majority of voters in his district, Gerlach said.

"I think the American people are concerned about where Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and President Obama’s agenda is taking us,” he said.

Earlier this year the congressman dropped out of Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, citing a lack of sufficient funding and kicked off his run for the House.

Gerlach, a four-term congressman, said if he’s re-elected he’ll push an agenda for "jobs, jobs, jobs.” He opposed Obama’s stimulus bill in February that claimed to save or create jobs. Focusing on small businesses would help stimulate the ailing economy, he said.

"We need job creation that will unleash our small business community,” he said.

Besides pushing for jobs, he’ll advocate less federal spending and working toward a balanced budget.

In April, he voted to stop an automatic pay raise for members of Congress for the upcoming fiscal year that begins in October. This is the third consecutive year that he has supported freezing lawmakers’ salaries, according to his website.

Gerlach recently received the Legislative Leader Award from the Humane Society of the United States for his 2009 efforts to protect animals from large-scale puppy mills that sell dogs on the Internet without meeting animal welfare standards, according to the Humane Society.

Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District encompasses portions of Berks, Chester, Lehigh and Montgomery counties.