HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Supporters of failed presidential candidate Marco Rubio are ending a court challenge seeking to knock Republican presidential rival John Kasich off Pennsylvania's primary ballot.
A withdrawal petition was filed Wednesday. The decision comes a day after Rubio lost his home state of Florida and suspended his campaign.
In February, Pennsylvania's secretary of state had accepted Kasich's candidate paperwork to get on Pennsylvania's April 26 ballot. But the court challenge had questioned whether Kasich's campaign collected enough valid voter signatures.
The Kasich campaign's lawyer had agreed that Kasich's paperwork was eight valid signatures short of the 2,000 required, but he maintained that the challenge was invalid because it was filed after the deadline.
Commonwealth Court judges hadn't ruled yet on whether the court challenge was valid.
Kasich pulled off his first big win Tuesday night in his home state of Ohio, through he has no plausible path to securing the nomination in what's left of the primary season. Republican front-runner Donald Trump said in an Ohio campaign stop Sunday that Kasich should drop out of the race because of questions about his eligibility in Pennsylvania. With Kasich, Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz still in the race, the prime suspense among Republicans now is whether the brutal fight will go all the way to an extraordinary contested convention in the summer.
