Most recent, he teased “Mastriano for Governor” logos on his social media accounts, asking his supporters which one they most preferred.

Christopher Nicholas

Notoriously press shy, Mastriano even chatted with the Philadelphia Inquirer. He told them that he was close to running and wouldn’t be deterred by the complete lack of support from GOP insiders, one of whom described another Mastriano for Governor campaign as “a death sentence” for the GOP.

Discontent indeed.

You may remember that Mastriano, the former Army officer from Franklin County, won 2022’s nine-way Republican primary easily but overall ran one of the worst gubernatorial campaigns in recent history.

Mastriano, though quite the center of controversy and campaign ineptitude, did manage to unite both Donald Trump and Josh Shapiro behind him then.

Trump endorsed Mastriano late in the spring campaign, as he was the leading candidate and his primary victory was a fait accompli. And Shapiro? Turned out he was Mastriano’s largest campaign donor in that primary, spending millions on television ads, etc., to boost Mastriano.

Like everyone else with a pulse, Shapiro knew that Mastriano would be the easiest Republican for him to beat in the fall … and thus the quickest path to the Governor’s Residence.

With the 1-2 punch of Trump and Shapiro’s backing, Mastriano won the primary with nearly 44% — more than twice the votes of his next nearest competitor, former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, among Trump’s earliest vocal supporters in the 2016 presidential race.

Mastriano went on to lose to then-Attorney General Shapiro in the general election by more than 792,000 votes, garnering less than 42% of the vote.

How bad was candidate Mastriano? The Republican Governors Association, which exists to help elect GOP governors, declined to back or fund Mastriano, who spent the fall not raising any money and whining about GOP leaders and groups not helping him.

He made such outlandish demands concerning potential TV debates — insisting that former Trump presidential aide Mercedes Schlapp moderate one — that he gave Shapiro an easy out to decline them.

Mastriano even declined to appear at a debate that the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry arranged to hold at their annual dinner in Hershey.

Remember that when you’re the trailing candidate, you want every opportunity to debate your opponent. (Note: since Shapiro was unchallenged in the Democratic primary, he ended up not having to debate at all during the entire 2022 campaign.)

And Mastriano gleefully deployed volunteers decked out in colonial-era hats and garb to keep the press away from his campaign events, preferring instead to live-stream them via Facebook … to people who were already supporting him.

That November, he took less than 30% in Allegheny County and just 13% in Philly – and lost by more than 2:1 in Delaware County and Montgomery County.

As the old saying goes, campaigns are about addition … but Mastriano spent the general focused on the purity of subtraction.

Discontent indeed.

Pennsylvania’s GOP is rather far along in the process of coalescing around state Treasurer Stacy Garrity for governor. She has broken the glass ceiling in two male-dominated arenas: the Army and the powdered metals industry.

Garrity is expected to make a formal announcement of her gubernatorial campaign in the near future, and the party is making the moves necessary to endorse her at its September meeting, many months earlier than normal.

Mastriano told the media he has a plan to win in 2026 and would not run unless he believes he can win. And he’s even launched a new campaign web site.

But Mastriano cannot win.

Most observers already rate next year’s governor’s race as “Likely Democrat” and if Mastriano runs again and wins the primary it’ll be written off entirely … again.

And remember, next year, as is the case every 12 years, Pennsylvania features a short ballot: Just governor, Congress, and state House for all voters and State Senate for half of Pennsylvanians (those in even Senate districts). This means a big swing at the top can more easily overtake the entire ticket.

Though a bad campaigner, Mastriano is not without some political savvy. He’s milking this “Will I Run” shtick to great effect, and he did give himself an out: he would respect any Trump endorsement in the race.

Earlier this summer, Trump pre-endorsed Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser for governor, though the congressman later declined to mount such a race.

Perhaps that has emboldened Mastriano to act like a candidate again, designing logos and talking to the Inquirer. Regardless, he cannot win a general election in the state and would also endanger Republican efforts to retake the state House and protect its two newest members of Congress, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie.

A Mastriano gubernatorial race would prove a punishing encore for Pennsylvania Republicans.

(Christopher Nicholas is a veteran GOP political consultant, president of Eagle Consulting Group, Inc., and writes the PA Political Digest newsletter.)