When Donald Trump takes the stage at the Oncenter in Syracuse tonight, candidate for Governor Bruce Blakeman will be at his side, but so will Kailee Buller. The Republican candidate for Congress is hoping to unseat freshman Democrat John Mannion of Syracuse. She invited supporters to attend in a video posted to her social media page.
"This is the most consequential election in New York history," Buller said in the video. "If you want to save New York, we want you there."
There’s no way to tell whether Buller needs the boost or not – there’s been no public polling of the race. The influential Cook Political Report upgraded the district to safely Democratic in January and hasn’t revisited it. And Buller has not been added to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s MAGA Majority funding program for candidates seen to have a shot at beating an incumbent Democrat.
So what will sharing the stage with the President do for her? Trump’s approval rating of just 30 percent is among the lowest ever, down with Richard Nixon before his Watergate resignation-in-disgrace, George W. Bush before his September 11 resurgence, and one-term President Jimmy Carter.
While there’s no polling of Buller’s race, there’s plenty about Donald Trump. Both the Siena and Marist college polls find Trump very unpopular in New York state, even when heavily Democratic New York City is excluded. Trump enjoys majority support, according to Marist, only from white men with no college education, evangelical white men and women, and rural voters.
That’s not much of a coattail to hang on to, but the hope is that it boosts Republican turnout. The rally might include a few opponents, too. Anti-Trumpers are saying they’ve gotten tickets to the rally and plan to leave the seats empty.
Buller’s opponent, John Mannion, isn’t afraid of Trump’s visit. He fundraised off a new ad, released Thursday, which scans a picnic table of food to highlight sharply rising prices due to the President's tariffs and other policies and implores people to vote to "end the madness."
At Trump's other rallies, some prominent Republicans have stayed away, even when they’ve been the focus of Trump’s pitch.
On his radio show on WSYR Radio, conservative talk host Bob Lonsberry said he wasn’t sure Trump would help Central New York Republicans. On his Twitter feed, he was more blunt. "Stay away, Mr. President," he wrote. "The last thing Bruce Blakeman needs is a visit from you." Lonsberry added that "only ego could explain a Trump trip to New York."
He said that anybody who loves Trump already hates Governor Kathy Hochul. Polls show that fewer than four percent of those polled say they could still change their minds. “If Trump could somehow transfer every bit of his New York popularity to Blakeman," Lonsberry wrote, "Blakeman would lose by the largest margin in modern history,"
But what will it do for Kailee Buller?
