A political unknown with no organization or money formally ended his bid for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination today after a nearly three-hour court hearing on Tuesday made it clear he didn’t have enough valid signatures on his petition to make it onto the ballot.
Peter Vallorosi, who did little to pursue the Senate seat beyond filing his petitions, is now mulling an independent bid for the seat held by Democrat Bob Menendez since 2006.
“I called up the No Labels today,” Vallorosi told the New Jersey Globe. “If you look at my issues, they are no labels. I’m telling you, they’re not Republican. They’re not Democratic. They’re independent. They’re there to protect all of us. I’m not a party guy — I really am not.”
But Vallorosi is probably a non-starter for No Labels, since he says he would not support their presidential nominee.
“There’s no way I could support anyone else but Trump,” he said. “One million percent I support Trump. The guy is doing what’s best for this country. It’s in his heart. He may not be a great guy, but he’s doing a great job.”
Vallorosi, a Newton resident who appears to own a small business, resisted the idea that he could not have won the Republican primary had he remained on the ballot.
“That’s your opinion. I don’t agree,” he said. “I speak to the people, I really do, and people can resonate with what I’m saying.”
His nominating petitions in the primary appeared to be a hot mess, and a representative of Christine Serrano Glassner’s team challenged them.
Vallorosi did not show up in court, leading Administrative Law Judge Andrew Baron to proceed without him. Vallorosi finally called the judge’s chambers and indicated that he was withdrawing from the race.
“They found a lot of non-Republicans on it, and that brought me way under the threshold,” said Vallorosi. “If it was just another threshold, I would have fought it, but it was considerably under.”
Still, by mid-morning, Vallorosi had not yet filed his signed withdrawal. That forced Baron to schedule another court hearing today. Shortly after that began, the withdrawal statement arrived.
“As far as I’m concerned, the matter, which we opened yesterday and spent 2.75 hours on, is now closed,” Baron said. “It was an arduous task that we went through, but we did get through.”
This was Vallorosi’s second run for office. He challenged Rep. Scott Garrett (R-Wantage) in the 2016 Republican primary for Congress in New Jersey’s 5th district but lost by 36,927 votes and finished third in a three-candidate race with 8.3%. It’s unclear how much money he raised for that race since Vallorosi never filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Later that year, Garrett lost his bid for an eighth term in Congress to Democrat Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff).