NASSAU COUNTY (VINnews) — President Trump is expected to appear with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman in Syracuse on Oct. 9, according to the NY Post citing sources familiar with the planning, as the Nassau County executive presses for help in a region where recent polling shows the race tightening.

A source briefed on the visit said Trump will join Blakeman for a campaign event in the central New York city next week. A second source said the president is also considering additional upstate stops later in October. The venue had not been announced, and the Blakeman campaign and the White House had not publicly confirmed the plans.

It would be Trump’s first visit to Syracuse since taking office. He last campaigned in the city during the 2016 presidential race. He previously appeared with Blakeman on Aug. 14 at the Nassau County Police Academy Center for Training and Intelligence in Garden City.

Blakeman’s campaign has been seeking Trump’s presence in parts of the state where Gov. Kathy Hochul looks more vulnerable, the sources said. The Nassau County executive, the first Jewish official to hold that post, is challenging the Democratic incumbent in the Nov. 3 election. Trump endorsed him late last year, after Rep. Elise Stefanik dropped out of the Republican primary, and called him a “fantastic guy” who will “win the big November election.”

A Siena College poll of likely voters, conducted Sept. 11-14 and released Sept. 23, found Hochul leading Blakeman 50% to 41% statewide. That is a narrower gap than the 17-point advantage Siena recorded for Hochul over Republican Lee Zeldin at a comparable point in 2022. Hochul went on to win that race by 6 points.

The same survey had Blakeman ahead upstate, 47% to 44%, and the two candidates nearly even in the downstate suburbs, where Hochul led 48% to 46%. Hochul held a wide lead in New York City, 61% to 27%.

A Quinnipiac University poll released the same day showed a larger statewide margin, with Hochul ahead 58% to 39%.

Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said the September numbers offered something to both campaigns. Hochul had reached 50% and seen her favorability move into positive territory, he said, while Blakeman was trailing by single digits in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2-to-1.

The two candidates are scheduled to debate Oct. 13. Blakeman has made public safety, taxes and opposition to a Hochul-backed plan to fold Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center into the city public hospital system central pieces of his pitch to voters, including in Orthodox neighborhoods that have long relied on the hospital.