We use the magnitude-redshift relation for the type Ia supernova data compiled by Riess et al. to analyze the Cardassian expansion scenario. This scenario assumes the universe to be flat, matter dominated, and accelerating, but contains no vacuum contribution. The best fitting model parameters are H₀ = 65.3 ksm^-1 Mpc^-1, n = 0.35 and Ω_m = 0.05. When the highest redshift supernova, SN 1997ck, is excluded, H₀ remains the same, but n becomes 0.20 and Ω_m, 0.15, and the matter density remains unreasonably low. Our result shows that this particular scenario is strongly disfavoured by the SNeIa data.