Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie won’t be on Maine’s presidential primary ballot in March.

Christie did not appeal a court decision affirming that he didn’t submit enough valid signatures to get on the ballot.

Christie had the option to appeal the Kennebec County Superior Court’s ruling to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, but a clerk for the court said Thursday that nothing has been filed.

The deadline to submit an appeal was Dec. 27, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of the Secretary of State said. Christie also has not filed to appear as a write-in on the March 5 presidential primary ballot, spokesperson Emily Cook said.

State statute requires federal, state and county write-in candidates on state ballots to file declarations ahead of an election so that clerks and election officials know who is a serious candidate and which names to count. The deadline to file as a write-in candidate for the presidential primary was Dec. 26.

Christie’s campaign issued a statement Thursday saying “we strongly disagree” with the court’s ruling, but a spokesperson did not answer questions about why Christie didn’t appeal or file as a write-in.

Failure to qualify for the Maine primary ballot isn’t the only problem for Christie, who is trailing in polling and did not qualify for the next Republican presidential primary debate to be hosted by CNN on Wednesday.

Former President Donald Trump continues to lead in polls, but he may be disqualified from the Maine ballot.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled last week that Trump should be disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Trump campaign has appealed her decision in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Bellows said last month that Christie had failed to submit the necessary number of certified signatures needed to get on the ballot.

His campaign argued that he had submitted more than the 2,000 signatures needed and that there were procedural issues with the way the signatures were reviewed.

It said the Augusta City Clerk’s office had a rushed process and didn’t verify all the signatures it could have when reviewing petitions the campaign submitted. In addition, the campaign contended that several municipalities had failed to verify valid signatures simply because the signatures were from voters in other communities.

Superior Court Justice Julia Lipez sided with Bellows in her ruling, saying that state statute does not allow a municipal registrar to certify the signatures of voters from other towns and cities, and that the secretary of state’s office had issued clear guidance to candidates about how to gather and submit signatures.

Republicans who qualified for the ballot are Trump, pending his appeal of Bellows’ ruling; North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum; Ryan Binkley, a Texas businessman and pastor; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley; and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur from Ohio.

Burgum has since announced that he has suspended his campaign and will not appear on the ballot, the secretary of state’s office said.

Democrats will choose between President Biden and U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota in the March 5 primary in Maine. There is also one declared write-in candidate for the Democratic nomination: Stephen Lyons of Damascus, Maryland.

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