By Steve Novak, Armchair Lehigh Valley
Andrew Tupone was running for Congress as a self-described Green Party candidate, but an objection from the party itself has forced him off the Nov. 3 ballot in Pennsylvania’s highly contested 7th District, following a state judge’s ruling on Friday.
Tupone, who was registered as a Republican until this year, has vowed to appeal.
He faced two challenges to his nomination: one from the Green Party of Pennsylvania, which had disavowed Tupone’s candidacy and claimed he falsely gave the impression of party affiliation; the other from a trio of Lehigh County Democrats who accused him of being a Republican spoiler.
Commonwealth Court Judge Stella Tsai heard arguments in both cases on Aug. 20 in Harrisburg. Tupone, 37, of Bethlehem Township, twice took the stand to explain aspects of his controversial candidacy.
Tsai’s ruling on the Green Party objection was posted Friday evening, writing that the court must respect the internal processes of political bodies and protect them “from external forces hijacking those bodies.”
A decision on the Lehigh County voters’ objections was still pending.
“The establishment parties are fighting to keep me off the ballot but I’m not backing down,” Tupone said in a text message Friday evening. “I will continue this fight and appeal this decision because the people of the Valley deserve a real choice and a true progressive candidate who will stand up for them.
“This fight isn’t over,” he continued. “I’m going to keep fighting for the voters to have an option and for the representation our community deserves.”
Barring a successful appeal to the state Supreme Court, Tupone’s removal will clear the way for a head-to-head battle between first-term Republican incumbent Ryan Mackenzie and Democratic challenger Bob Brooks.
Experts already consider the 7th District race to be a toss-up. Previous Congressional elections here have hinged on a few thousand votes, and the winner could help determine which party controls the U.S. House in the midterms. A Green candidate would be expected to siphon votes from Democrats.
The Green Party of Pennsylvania and former state party co-chair Christina Olson of Hellertown filed an objection that Tupone, a former Republican who only registered as a Green in April, after two months as a Democrat, made little to no effort at securing their endorsement and did not submit to their candidate vetting process.
In Pennsylvania, minor parties do not hold primaries. Instead they use committees and questionnaires to decide where to focus their limited resources. But they contended this quirk of election law unfairly allows essentially anyone to file as a minor party candidate, even without the party’s knowledge or endorsement.
They claimed that Tupone falsely gave the impression of party support by using their name, and that allowing him to continue running as a Green would have risked reputational damage and violated the party’s rights.
Tsai noted in her order that Tupone could have come up with another political body name or even argued that the “Green Party” listed on his petition was somehow different from the Green Party of Pennsylvania, but did not.
Tupone “asserts his right to file nomination papers as the nominee of the Green Party without the Green Party’s actual nomination of him, arguing that the ‘signatures are the nomination,’” the judge’s decision says. “This cannot be the case because the electors signing the nomination papers … are not necessarily members of the Green Party. To hold otherwise would allow non-Green Party electors to select the candidate for the Green Party, usurping the Green Party’s ability to nominate its own candidate should it choose to do so.”
The other, still-pending case from the Lehigh County voters centered on technical aspects of Tupone’s nomination petition — misstated county names, some circulators’ unverifiable addresses, and uncredited alterations to legal statements, they argued, provided justification for nullifying all or most of Tupone’s petition.
On the stand last month, Tupone was pressed on his approach to his campaign. He had no staff to speak of, but has said he got more than 10,000 signatures on his nominating petition, well beyond the 4,074 required to appear on the ballot. (On Aug. 21, the court ordered the Greens’ candidate for governor, Tony Dastra, be removed from the Nov. 3 ballot for failing to garner the 5,000 signatures needed for that race; the lieutenant governor candidate, Craig Bolton, did have enough but cannot appear on the ballot without a running mate for governor.)
Tupone testified that he had tried to contact the party to go through the endorsement process but never got a call back. Party co-chair Timothy Runkle, who was also called as a witness last month, said he only heard about Tupone’s candidacy when the Greens started getting calls about paid petitioners, including at least one from a petitioner herself. Tupone and Runkle differed in their account of a phone call in mid-July — Tupone said Runkle tried to “intimidate” him out of running; Runkle said he tried to explain the party’s process and why it was too late for an endorsement.
Tupone has insisted he did not hire or pay circulators to collect signatures on his behalf. The petition documents reviewed by Armchair Lehigh Valley show that 28 circulators (not 22 as previously reported) worked the district in mid- to late July, including while Tupone himself was traveling outside the country. All but three circulators came from out of state, and none were local.
However, one circulator testified that he was paid by a third-party organization. Colin McEvers, himself a Republican candidate for Maryland’s state legislature, said he was alerted to an “opportunity” in the district through 1st Amendment Pros, aka 1st Amendment Professionals. The petitioning service was registered in Wyoming last year. (A request for comment left through its website was not returned.)
Tupone said he handed out blank nomination forms to anyone who seemed interested. He also said he picked up completed forms from an unidentified person in a Harrisburg parking lot, which he then submitted as a supplement to his initial filing. He could not say when he knew he had enough signatures to file or how he knew he had 10,000. He said he generally left the filing to his attorneys.
Tsai’s ruling found Tupone’s testimony “largely credible” though he was “less than forthcoming” about assistance with his nomination papers.
Tupone was represented by Wally Zimolong, a Philadelphia-area attorney who has prominent Republican connections. Zimolong is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association who has represented President Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee, and Republican Sen. David McCormick in Pennsylvania election cases in 2024; has donated to Republican candidates including Mackenzie; and, as PoliticsPA reported, is the attorney on record for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s neighbors in a property dispute in federal court.
The Green Party of Pennsylvania and Olson were represented by Philadelphia attorney Timothy J. Ford, whose election case experience includes defending Montgomery County mail-in ballots from a Trump challenge in the 2020 election.
The other challenge was filed by Louise Dillensnyder of Emmaus; Joyce Moore of Upper Milford Township; and Susan Baranek of Upper Macungie Township, who is listed as a member of the county Democratic committee. They were represented by Philadelphia attorney Kevin Greenberg, an election lawyer and active Democrat who until recently was a member of the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee. He has acted as general counsel to the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, as well as candidates from both major parties.
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.