BREAKING: Maine Supreme Court Rules Christie Ineligible for 2024 Ballot

Maine’s highest court has ruled that Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie will not appear on the 2024 ballot after his campaign failed to gather enough certified signatures from registered voters.

The decision stems from an appeal brought by Christie’s campaign in response to a previous decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows that he did not gather the necessary 2,000 certified signatures. Bellows claimed that the Christie campaign turned in just 844 signatures.

“We appreciate that the court upheld the integrity of Maine’s well-established ballot access requirements,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a statement. “Every candidate, including presidential candidates, must follow the law to qualify for the ballot. We are glad that the court recognized that Maine law is workable and fair to all.”

The process of gathering signatures from voters in long and arduous. Candidates or their staff must collect raw signatures from voters in the field, which are then turned into local city or town halls for certification. The certified signatures must then be picked up from each individual community and delivered to the secretary of state, in the case of Maine by the November 20th deadline.

Christie still has until December 26th to register as a write-in candidate.

The news is another blow to the Republican’s struggling campaign amid falling numbers and calls to drop out and consolidate the anti-Trump vote behind Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, both of whom continue to battle it out for the second place spot in Iowa and New Hampshire. So far, Republican candidates who have qualified for the Maine ballot include Haley, DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, local pastor Ryan Binkley, and former President Donald Trump, according to CBS News.

The former New Jersey governor has promised to withdraw from the race if he does not provide a strong showing in New Hampshire, the second state to vote in the Republican primary season. The state’s popular Republican Governor Chris Sununu recently endorsed Haley, further diminishing Christie as anti-Trump Republicans look for any opportunity to put a dent in the former president’s chasmic polling leads. Trump holds 44.6% of primary support in New Hampshire and 45% in Maine, according to FiveThirtyEight.