Bruce Blakeman welcomed President Trump to Nassau County on Friday for a tour of a police facility, reinforcing a partnership that has defined his campaign for New York governor from the start. Trump endorsed Blakeman early and publicly hailed him as "MAGA all the way." But the candidate himself draws a sharper distinction.
"There are some people that are a little left of center. There are some people that are right in the middle, and there are some people like me that are just right of center," Blakeman said in an interview. He would not call himself a conservative outright.
Blakeman supports abortion access for women and a path to legal status for certain immigrants — positions that separate him from the national Republican base but reflect the electorate he has governed. As Nassau County executive, he represents a county where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, and he has won there twice.
"My relationship with President Trump is excellent. I consider him a close friend and ally," Blakeman said. On immigration enforcement, he aligns tightly with the president — opposing what he calls the "sanctuary" policies of incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul and pointing to hundreds of undocumented immigrants removed from Nassau through cooperation with federal law enforcement.
At a rally near Great Sacandaga Lake, Blakeman drew a roar from the crowd when he cited the $3.9 billion that Hochul's administration directed toward shelter and assistance for asylum-seekers bused to New York City during the Biden administration. That figure has become a centerpiece of his pitch to upstate Republicans.
The math of a statewide race in New York is unforgiving for any Republican. Kamala Harris carried the state by 12 points in 2024. A Siena poll released this week puts Trump's approval among likely New York voters at just 38 percent. Blakeman disputes those numbers, saying the figures he has reviewed show a single-digit race. "Either I'm a little ahead of Kathy Hochul, or she's a little ahead of me," he said.
Hochul's campaign is working to erase whatever daylight exists between Blakeman and Trump, tying the two together at every turn. Blakeman keeps his campaign message focused on Hochul's management of the state rather than the president — even as he appeared alongside Trump on Friday and leans on Trump's signature immigration messaging upstate.
The tension between those two imperatives — energize the base, win the middle — mirrors what every Republican running statewide in a blue state has had to work through in the Trump era. Blakeman has studied the 2022 run by Lee Zeldin, who came closer to winning the New York governorship than any Republican since the 1990s. Blakeman said he has turned to Zeldin for advice in this cycle. Zeldin now leads the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump.
Not every Republican in a competitive state has taken Blakeman's approach of standing visibly next to the president. Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, a consistent Trump supporter during six years in Congress, declined this week to say whether he would welcome Trump to the state as he runs for governor there. Larry Hogan, who won two terms as governor of blue Maryland, ran as an open critic of Trump.
Trump's 2024 performance in New York gave Republicans reason for optimism. He overperformed on Long Island and in other vote-rich pockets, including among immigrant and minority communities that have historically leaned Democratic. His margin in New York was the strongest any Republican presidential candidate has posted in the state since George H.W. Bush narrowly lost New York in 1988 on his way to the White House.
But Trump's approval numbers have eroded in the year and a half since his second inauguration, complicating Blakeman's attempt to harness that 2024 energy without inheriting the political drag that has followed. The Siena poll's 38 percent approval figure among likely New York voters is the live number Blakeman's campaign must facing through Election Day.
