Strange fight brewing as PA Greens try to kick 'fake' candidate off ballot

In one of the most competitive congressional districts in the country, a strange fight is brewing between the Pennsylvania Green Party and a candidate who is petitioning to appear on the ballot under their label.

Andrew Tupone submitted his nomination papers with thousands of signatures to the Department of State last month, seeking a spot on the ballot in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. He then released a statement appealing to the Green Party’s progressive voter base.

“[Incumbent] Congressman [Ryan] Mackenzie has been in lock step with Trump and he must be stopped,” it read. “After the Democratic National Party put their thumbs on the scale in the primary for Bob Brooks as the nominee, I believe local grassroots voters deserve another choice and that’s why so many are backing my candidacy.”

But the state Green Party is warning voters that the bid may be a ploy to trick voters in a race the Cook Political Report rates as a “toss up.”

On Monday, the party filed an objection to Tupone’s attempt to get on the ballot in Commonwealth Court.

“Tupone and his agents or affiliates … misled voters into signing the Nomination Papers on the mistaken belief that they were helping to place a candidate supported by the Green Party onto the ballot,” the objection reads. “Many of the voters who signed Candidate Tupone’s Nomination Papers would not have done so had they been aware that Candidate Tupone was not actually affiliated with or endorsed by the GPPA.”

The objection notes that Tupone was a registered Republican until mid-February 2026, when he changed his registration to Democrat. He changed it again to Green in April.

“My political beliefs always remained the same. It doesn’t matter what party I was registered to,” Tupone told the Capital-Star. “I am trying to buck the establishment of both parties … I’m running for universal healthcare, ending the genocide in Gaza and standing up to the establishment parties.”

A separate objection to Tupone’s petition to appear on the PA-07 ballot was filed by Democratic voters with ties to the party. They’re alleging issues with many of the 9,460 signatures Tupone collected and, like the Green Party, accusing him of paying out-of-state people to help collect them.

Tupone told the Capital-Star, “I am not aware of any paid operation and just thankful for the volunteers that want change this November and tired of the two party establishment.”

Chris Robinson, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Green Party said the group learned about Tupone from the media after he submitted his nomination papers.

“We had no idea who he was,” Robinson said. “There were records of him running for office in the past as a Republican, and you can look up his voter registration — anybody can do that — and it said he was a Republican up until [February] of this year.”

Robinson also learned Tupone had previously run for election to a Magisterial Judge seat in Northampton County, appearing on the general election ballot as a Republican in 2021. Though Tupone had cross-filed and ran in the Democratic primary as well both times.

Tupone told the Capital-Star that any accusation that he is a Republican acting as a spoiler is “simply not true and a false accusation by political operatives.”

It’s unclear if the Green Party has grounds to challenge Tupone’s place on the ballot. As a minor political party, it is not able to hold primaries the same way Democrats and Republicans can in the state. Instead, hopeful candidates must collect signatures and turn them into the Pennsylvania Department of State to appear on the general election ballot.

“That’s the way the Pennsylvania regulations are written,” Robinson said.

He added that it would take reforms agreed to by Republicans and Democrats in the state House to fix the problem, such as allowing minor parties to hold primaries or implementing what’s called “fusion voting,” which would allow candidates to represent multiple parties.

“There’s a whole bunch of things like that, and every voter you talk to probably has different things they’d like to see,” he said. “But nobody cares about that in Harrisburg. The people who are legislators in Harrisburg would like to keep things the same. It worked for them. Why change it?”

The 7th Congressional District election is expected to be one of the decisive races when it comes to which party controls the U.S. House in 2027.

The contest has been attracting national interest for much of the year.

According to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks spending in American politics, the race has already drawn over $9.5 million in contributions. Just over 75% of that has come from out of state.