Trump Headlines a Syracuse Rally Tonight as New York's Governor Race Barrels Into the Final Stretch

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Donald Trump is coming to upstate New York on Friday night, and the candidate who needs him most might be better off without him. The president headlines a midterm election rally at the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center in downtown Syracuse — doors at 3 p.m. EDT, program at 5:30, Trump on stage around 7 p.m., according to the Republican Party's event listing — to rally support for the state's Republican candidates with the November 3 midterms now 25 days out. GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman is expected to be there. The awkward part, per the polling, is that his own voters may not love the pairing as much as he does.

The event details are confirmed by two USA TODAY Network outlets. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, in a piece updated Friday, lists the same schedule: 3 p.m. doors, 5:30 program, 7 p.m. remarks, at 800 S. State St. in Syracuse, with Blakeman expected to attend per published reports. The Journal News' lohud.com column on the governor's race, updated about eight hours before this writing, matches it. Ticket requests remain open, with attendees able to request up to four free tickets. Organizers have released little else — no speaker list, no attendance expectations, no security details.

Blakeman's attendance is the "expected" part doing a lot of work. His campaign has not confirmed to the USA TODAY Network that he'll be there, but multiple news outlets have reported he will attend — and his own social media post this week advertised, in the post's words, his presence at a Syracuse-area sports bar to "Pre-Game the Trump Rally Celebration" an hour before the doors open at 3 p.m. He's been seen alongside Trump multiple times this year, most recently during the president's August visit to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County. The embrace is total. The question is whether it's wise.

Because the polling on the Trump-Blakeman association is rough, and it's Blakeman's own side of the ledger that looks worst. The Siena Research Institute's September poll found that a majority of New York likely voters — 51% to 30% — believe Trump's endorsement will negatively impact Blakeman's campaign for governor. Gov. Kathy Hochul's campaign has hammered that point relentlessly, with the campaign saying Blakeman's "obsession" with the president "is a problem for this state and for his campaign, and New Yorkers can see it." The head-to-head numbers aren't much kinder: a Marist poll conducted October 1–4 of 1,361 registered voters has Hochul ahead 53-42, and an Emerson College/PIX 11 poll of 900 likely voters conducted October 3–5 has her up 52-40. The Marist survey found Hochul dominant with New York City voters while Blakeman does better with independents and upstate voters.

There is one genuinely interesting crack in the polls for Blakeman, though. Emerson's polling director, Spencer Kimball, noted that independents break for the Republican, 55% to 34% — a "notable contrast," he said, to other Emerson polls this cycle where independents "have generally favored the Democratic candidate." In a state as blue as New York, a Republican challenger doesn't need independents to lean his way; he needs them to run toward him. That's the number the Syracuse rally is aimed at: independents and upstate voters, the two groups the Marist poll says are already Blakeman's best turf. If the rally does anything, it should be juicing turnout in exactly those columns — not converting anyone, just getting the persuaded to the polls.

But Blakeman arrives in Syracuse with more than a polling deficit. On Wednesday, October 7, New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs filed a complaint with the state's Public Campaign Finance Board calling on it, in Jacobs's words, to "not release any further public matching funds" to Blakeman's campaign "until every pending and previously paid claim has been independently verified." Jacobs also wants the Board of Elections' Division of Election Law Enforcement to investigate the campaign's disclosure filings. The matching-funds fight has dogged Blakeman all year: the PCFB initially denied him access to matching funds in March over a paperwork error, a decision later reversed in a court battle. Then New York Focus reported that more than 2,600 donations worth over $860,000 in public funds had been marked by the campaign as eligible for the program when they weren't — and that Blakeman had requested matching funds for over 1,900 contributions from out-of-state donors that were wrongly listed as from "in-district" donors. The campaign told New York Focus the errors had been corrected and amended reports filed; it had not responded to the USA TODAY Network's questions about the complaint as of the column's publication.

Jacobs's complaint asks the board to deny match requests for non-New York contributors and for contributions exceeding $1,050 in the aggregate or duplicating another reported contribution, to re-examine claims already paid and recover any excess, and to start an audit now instead of after Election Day. "The public matching funds program was created to amplify the voices of New York donors, not to underwrite a campaign's inability, or unwillingness, to follow its most basic rules," Jacobs wrote in the complaint. "Election Day is less than four weeks away," Jacobs continued. "Once those dollars go out the door, they will be spent, and they will not come back."

And while the candidates trade barbs, the outside money is getting creative. A super PAC backing Blakeman, Strong and Safe New York, planned a convoy of moving trucks for Friday — rolling billboards about the state's affordability crisis to the state Capitol and city halls in White Plains, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and Yonkers. It's a follow-up to the PAC's own "You Are Now Leaving NY (Like Everyone Else)" billboard campaign, which planted signs in 13 locations including a bridge from Staten Island to New Jersey and roads into Massachusetts and Vermont. State campaign finance records show several big donors poured $2.3 million into the PAC through August 4 — including $1 million tied to Madison Square Garden executive James Dolan and a committee he supported, $500,000 from Trilogy Advisors, and $500,000 from documentary producer and former radio journalist Caryl Ratner. Blakeman's own campaign, for context, spent $10.5 million and had $178,000 left, per the latest records cited by the USA TODAY Network.

So tonight in Syracuse is a study in contradictions: a president whose endorsement a majority of the state's voters say hurts the candidate, headlining a rally the candidate is eagerly pre-gaming at a sports bar. Blakeman's bet is that the energy of a Trump rally — the independents, the upstate base, the turnout machine — outweighs the Siena number. Hochul's bet is that every photo of the two of them together is worth a point or two in the suburbs. Twenty-five days out, with double-digit deficits in two fresh polls and a finance board complaint hanging over the campaign, Blakeman doesn't have the luxury of choosing. He needs the crowd. He just might also need them to forget who's on stage.