Doug Mastriano might run for governor. He also might not.

However, two things are certain for Mastriano — he’s not going to stop teasing an entrance into the gubernatorial race on his social media accounts, and he’s not going to listen to Republican magnates telling him not to run.

Unless that person is President Donald Trump, who is featured in Mastriano’s X header.

Mastriano, who serves as a state senator covering Adams and Franklin counties, recently talked with the Philadelphia Inquirer about his plans to enter (or not enter) the governor’s race next year after making multiple X posts hinting at a run.

Politico recently spoke with four Republicans familiar with Trump advisers. Across the state, Republicans are waiting for an announcement from Mastriano.

He told the Inquirer he’ll make his decision with his wife, Rebbie. He also said in a statement to the Inquirer that he has “a plan” to beat incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, who still hasn’t officially entered the race but is popular among Pennsylvanians.

Mastriano lost in 2022 to Gov. Josh Shapiro by nearly 15 percentage points and 800,000 votes after winning the Republican gubernatorial primary with about 44% of the vote, more than double that of his next closest competitor, former GOP Congressman Lou Barletta. But that win followed a protracted primary that began with 16 candidates, and it’s unclear how Mastriano would perform in a head-to-head against Garrity.

The state GOP is tentatively uniting around Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who also hasn’t officially entered the race.

“The most visible parts of the party are lining up behind Garrity,” Charlie Gerow, a long-time GOP consultant who briefly ran against Mastriano in the 2022 gubernatorial primary, told PennLive earlier this month. Gerow also said Mastriano “has a lot of activists who, in effect, fly under the radar.”

One GOP leader the Inquirer spoke to said a run by Mastriano would be a “death sentence” for the party. Politico’s sources mirrored that concern, saying Mastriano is “a nightmare that no one wants.”

The senator told the Inquirer his loss in 2022 was because of the failure by Republicans to promote early voting and unite behind redistricting.

He added that GOP insiders “risk losing the grassroots movement that we developed” through resistance to covid-19 closures and “voting integrity efforts” in 2020, which led him to call for an investigation into baseless claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania.

Ultimately, Mastriano told the Inquirer, he won’t run unless he believes he can win. He also said he would respect any endorsement decisions made by Trump, who hasn’t weighed in on the race.

Politico’s sources said Trump’s team is “very concerned” about the down-ballot impact if Mastriano enters the race, but Mastriano said on X that he had Trump’s “direct line” and Trump wasn’t expressing concern.

While Republican leaders seem generally opposed to a Mastriano run, Republican voters — especially the MAGA caucus — want him to run. He’s favored by 21 points over Garrity, according to a private Public Policy Polling survey conducted in May and obtained by Politico.

Pennsylvania Republicans will likely back a candidate this September, something Mastriano is not happy about, according to his X posts. “How about the people decide,” he said in a post.

His posts on the platform appeal to a far-right, ultra-conservative audience that seems to be growing with the anticipation of a gubernatorial announcement. He said in a post that 25,000 people weighed in on what a potential logo should be for his gubernatorial run.

No candidates have entered the race, but Garrity is term-limited from running for treasurer again, and she has teased a run, although not as obviously as Mastriano has.

One conservative pundit PennLive spoke to earlier this month said the race should “snap into focus” within the next six weeks.

As for Mastriano, he told the Inquirer that he would announce a decision to run “on my timeline,” not because of “pressure from party insiders.”

“The future of our movement won’t be dictated by insiders,” he said. “It will be led by the people.”

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