Despite Trump's falling approval in NYS, Blakeman sees their friendship as an asset in governor's race

WASHINGTON — When Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman started weighing a run for governor late last year — setting up a potentially bruising primary with then-declared candidate Elise Stefanik — he wanted to run it by a longtime friend.

Blakeman called President Donald Trump on his cell and made his pitch for why he should be the GOP’s pick to take on Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Trump listened as Blakeman made the case that he had just handily won reelection in Nassau, a key suburban battleground, and had been fielding calls from other state Republicans urging him to run for governor.

“I told him that I was contemplating running, and he said to me: ‘Well, do what you feel is in your heart,' ” Blakeman told Newsday in a recent phone interview, recounting the interaction last fall.

Without an explicit ‘no’ from Trump, Blakeman threw his hat in the ring against Stefanik, an upstate congresswoman whom Trump initially tapped to serve as United Nations ambassador. And after Trump declined to choose sides, telling Newsday at an unrelated White House event last December that both candidates were “great people,” Stefanik soon abandoned her campaign, clearing the way for a Blakeman-Hochul matchup.

The implicit support from Trump drew on a relationship between the two New Yorkers that dates back some three decades. It is a connection that carries both risks and opportunities in the governor's race, with polls showing that Trump's staunch supporters are heavily outnumbered in New York State.

But even as those polls show Trump’s approval rating continuing to decline in his former home state, Blakeman has not distanced himself from the president. Instead he is dismissing any talk that the president’s low polling numbers are a liability for his campaign and is leaning into their close relationship, as both did at a speech in Uniondale last week.

“He's the most powerful person in the world, and I think that basically the fact that we have a good relationship with the president is a very positive thing,” Blakeman told reporters at a news conference a day before the speech, when asked if Trump’s visit could soften support for Republican candidates among independents.

Blakeman added: “I don't think that there's any liability whatsoever. And listen, you don't make decisions purely on what's good politically.”

Hochul has made the relationship between Blakeman and Trump a central message of her campaign, seeking to use the president's unpopularity to pull down Blakeman. A Siena University poll of likely New York voters released earlier this month found 60% of those polled disapprove of Trump’s job performance, compared with 37% who approve.

“Our campaign is taking the contrast in this election to voters’ screens, doorsteps, and phones: while Governor Hochul fights for your family, Bruce Blakeman fights for Donald Trump,” Hochul campaign manager Preston Elliott said in a statement.

Trump, who values loyalty among those in his circle, has repeatedly used his bully pulpit to draw attention to Blakeman’s campaign, whether by using Nassau as the backdrop last week to unveil the FBI’s annual data report, endorsing Blakeman via social media posts as “MAGA all the way” or inviting him to the White House for a closed-door Oval Office meeting in May.

“A lot of times, I'm with people and I'm sort of not very sure. I'm sure of this one — he's going to be great,” Trump said of Blakeman from the Uniondale event stage, earlier calling the county executive “a great person, a friend of mine for a long time.”

Early friendship

It’s a friendship Blakeman said started with a brief encounter with Trump in the 1990s, when Trump was a high-profile real estate developer making the rounds of Manhattan’s social scene. The relationship developed over time as Blakeman served as a Port Authority commissioner from 2001 to 2009.

“I met him many times at many different functions, charitable functions, business functions. I had clients who did business with him, so he was somebody that you had to know in New York,” Blakeman said.

During Trump’s first term in office, Blakeman was often floated as someone the president was eyeing for a post within his administration. But Blakeman, then a Hempstead Town councilman, said he opted to stay on Long Island, running for Nassau County executive in 2021 and narrowly unseating Democrat Laura Curran.

Blakeman would use that tight race and his subsequent reelection win against Democrat Seth Koslow in 2025 to make the case to Trump that he could boost Republican support and win over swing suburban voters while embracing key parts of Trump’s agenda, including by supporting a local cooperation agreement between Nassau police and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

After Trump lost the 2020 election and faced a number of federal probes and later criminal indictments, Blakeman often called Trump by phone to offer a supportive voice, or to simply talk local politics and current affairs.

“I spoke to him a lot more between 2020 and 2024,” Blakeman said. ”Now, obviously, he's the most busy person in the whole world, so I don't speak to him quite as frequently as I used to. I don't want to use up his time. I typically call him on the basis of if I need to talk to him, and sometimes he just picks up the phone and calls me to check in. So I'm very grateful for the time that he spends with me. But I'm also very judicious on how I use that time, knowing that he's the most busy person in the world.”

'All a calculation'

Blakeman’s close ties to Trump could help him animate turnout among the president’s base, but they could also hurt Blakeman’s chances to win over moderates dissatisfied with Trump, said Larry Levy, executive dean at Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies.

“It’s all a calculation,” Levy told Newsday. “The upside is that it helps Blakeman firm up the MAGA base, as Trump did carry Nassau and Suffolk in 2024, and it could give him access to the very deep pockets of Trump’s national supporters. But then there’s the downside, including Trump’s abysmal poll ratings in New York that threaten not only Blakeman, but all other Republican candidates.”

Former Long Island Rep. Peter King, a Seaford Republican now advising Blakeman’s campaign, said Trump told many of those he spoke with backstage before last week’s event that he was bullish on Blakeman’s chances.

“I spoke to President Trump just a few minutes. He said to me, ‘I think this guy can do it. I really think he can do it. That's why I'm out here,’ ” King said in a phone interview, recounting his conversation with Trump.

A recent Siena University poll found Hochul’s lead narrowing to 10 percentage points over Blakeman, compared to a 20-point gap in June. The recent poll surveyed "likely" voters, unlike the June poll, which surveyed a broader pool of "registered" voters, a switch that typically leads to some tightening.

Blakeman, who ran unsuccessfully for New York City mayor in 2009, U.S. Senate in 2010 and U.S. House in 2014, told Newsday he couldn’t recall whether he previously turned to Trump for support in those races.

“I think our relationship has gotten a lot closer through the years," Blakeman said, "and I consider him right now a close friend and ally.”

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.