CHAMBERSBURG, Pennsylvania — For a brief moment on Tuesday, it appeared that Doug Mastriano, the Republican politician who represents this historic borough in Franklin County as their state senator, had announced on social media he was seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.

It turns out that the tweet announcement was a fake. The man who has run and lost a Republican congressional primary in 2018, served as this region’s state senator since 2019, and got clobbered in last year’s gubernatorial race by 15 percentage points is not running for the seat — at least not yet.