By Steve Novak, Armchair Lehigh Valley
A Philadelphia-area election law attorney who specializes in legal challenges on behalf of Republicans, including President Donald Trump, is representing Andrew Tupone, the third-party candidate in the 7th Congressional District who is facing petition challenges calling for his removal from the November ballot.
Tupone is running as a Green Party candidate. The party has disavowed him and filed one of the challenges to his nomination petition. The other came from three Democratic voters in Lehigh County. Both are scheduled for hearings Thursday morning in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg.
Walter S. Zimolong, whose law firm is in Villanova, filed his appearance on behalf of Tupone on Monday, according to the court docket.
Tupone told Armchair Lehigh Valley that a Google search for “constitutional election attorney philadelphia” led him to Zimolong.
“After speaking with him I felt confident he was a good person to hire,” Tupone said in an email. Zimolong did not answer a request for comment.
The challenges allege dishonest tactics by Tupone and his petition circulators. Tupone is accused of being a “spoiler candidate” to benefit first-term Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie by drawing votes from Democratic challenger Bob Brooks.
“Anyone with eyes can see Tupone is a Republican plant trying to trick voters in a desperate ploy to save Mackenzie’s doomed reelection campaign,” Benny Stanislawski, communications director for the Brooks campaign, said Monday. Mackenzie’s team declined comment.
Tupone, a 37-year-old from Bethlehem Township, was a Republican from 2008 until early this year. He switched to the Democratic Party in February and Green in April.
Tupone has said he was not an active Republican, but he now has one representing him.
According to Zimolong’s biography on his firm’s website, he represented Trump and the Republican National Committee in “multiple election-related matters” during the 2024 election, including a voter-access dispute in Bucks County.
He also says he coordinated a statewide recount on behalf of Sen.-elect David McCormick and the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2024. In May, Zimolong posted on his firm’s website that the firm supported the $1.8 billion Trump Anti-Weaponization Fund, the settlement fund that could have benefited Trump supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Zimolong is an executive board member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and leads its southeastern Pennsylvania chapter, according to his website bio. The RNLA’s website says he “regularly represents Republican candidates, elected officials, and national party committees in election integrity matters,” including “advocating for lawful ballot access.”
Zimolong was involved in cases against drop-boxes in Chester and Lehigh counties in 2022. In both, he served as co-counsel for America First Legal, a group led by Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows, who served in Trump’s first term. Miller is now Trump’s deputy chief of staff.
In the Lehigh County case, Judge Thomas A. Capehart rejected a request from four Republican voters that Lehigh County election staff monitor drop-off boxes to ensure that voters place only one ballot in them, as required by state law. The judge said the county deploys video cameras to monitor activity at the five locations and election workers “may unduly interfere with voters lawfully returning ballots.”
Zimolong has contributed more than $30,000 since 2008 to Republican candidates and groups, according to a review of campaign finance data filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Pennsylvania Department of State. In 2025, he gave $250 to Mackenzie’s reelection campaign.
The 7th Congressional District comprises all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties and part of Monroe County. As a political swing district, analysts expect a close race that could help determine which party controls the U.S. House for the remainder of Trump’s term. The last congressional race here in 2024 came down to about 4,000 votes, or 1 percentage point.
Tupone faces two challenges to his nomination petitions that seek to remove him from the Nov. 3 ballot. One from the Green Party of Pennsylvania alleges that Tupone falsely gave the impression that he had the party’s support. Barring a decision invalidating the petitions, the Greens ask that the court at least prevent Tupone from using the party name for the rest of the campaign.
The other challenge comes from three Lehigh County voters, all Democrats: Joyce Moore, a former Upper Milford Township supervisor; Louise Dillensnyder of Emmaus; and Susan Baranek of Upper Milford Township. They are represented by Philadelphia attorney Kevin Greenberg, an election lawyer and active Democrat who until recently was a member of the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee.
That challenge takes aim at the 22 people who circulated Tupone’s petitions — all but one was from out of state, none from the Lehigh Valley, and one has ties to the Maryland White Republican Council. The filing notes numerous alleged technical deficiencies on the circulators’ petitions. It also accuses them of hiding the true nature of the petition by concealing parts of the paper and telling voters they were signing something against data centers or to reduce electricity prices.
The Lehigh County voters’ challenge seeks to invalidate nearly all of Tupone’s signatures, which would leave him well short of the 4,704 required to appear on the November ballot.
Tupone claims to have gotten 10,000 signatures, double what the Green Party’s own candidate for governor received.
Tupone ran twice for a district judgeship in Northampton County, losing a primary in 2015 and a general election in 2022. Those races are considered nonpartisan, but he was a Republican at the time, and performed better with Republicans in both campaigns.
Robert H. Orenstein and Katherine Reinhard contributed to this story.
This story first appeared on Armchair Lehigh Valley and is being published on themorningcall.com as part of a partnership with the website, which aims to give voters factual information in a nonpartisan way to help them make informed decisions at the polls. Armchair Lehigh Valley is run by publisher Katherine Reinhard and editor Robert H. Orenstein, two former Morning Call employees. Learn more about Armchair Lehigh Valley and subscribe at armchairlehighvalley.substack.com.