Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, seeking to shore up Latino support for his re-election bid, will make the third overseas trip of his tenure on Friday with a visit to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat facing re-election in November, will make both stops in a single day, his campaign said Wednesday, and will hold a press event in San Juan on Friday afternoon.

The visit will be paid for by Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, according to a spokesman for the governor.

Mr. Cuomo said last weekend that he was considering the visit to “go down and pay respects.”

“The community here very much resonates with their homeland and I have a history with Puerto Rico—I did a lot of work when I was in the federal government—and Dominican Republic, too, ” he said. Mr. Cuomo served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton.

The trip comes as Mr. Cuomo, after nearly four years of rarely leaving New York, has made foreign travel a common feature late in his first term in office.

Over the summer the governor visited Israel and last month he took a U.S.-military-sponsored trip to Afghanistan, along with three other governors.

The excursion to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico comes less than three weeks before the Nov. 4 election and as Mr. Cuomo seeks to promote his new memoir, released on Tuesday.

The governor’s Republican gubernatorial opponent, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, has criticized Mr. Cuomo’s travel plans, calling them an “insulting attempt to make him seem engaged in Hispanic affairs.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Cuomo aroused some ire among immigrant communities when the state Legislature didn’t pass the Dream Act, which would have made state tuition aid available to illegal immigrants. On the campaign trail, he has vowed to push for that legislation in a second term.