BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Randy Altschuler at Thursday’s debate at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead.

Looking for all the support he can get in his bid to unseat Congressman Tim Bishop, Randy Altschuler will get some help next week from the Speaker of the House.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will be on Long Island Wednesday October 10, when he is expected to attend a $250-per-plate fundraiser at a private residence in Mr. Altschuler’s hometown of St. James.

Hoping the opportunity to meet the Speaker will energize volunteers, Mr. Altschuler’s campaign sent out several emails this week offering free tickets to the event for his most active volunteers over the next nine days.

While the Altschuler campaign no doubt hopes the Boehner visit will help them gain in the polls — a recent Sienna Research poll has him trailing Mr. Bishop (D-Southampton) by 13 points — it should certainly improve the challenger’s campaign finances.

Fundraiser attendees who offer a $1,000 contribution to Mr. Altschuler’s campaign will be given an opportunity to pose for pictures with Speaker Boehner. A $5,000 donation gets you a “VIP private roundtable” with the Speaker.

Records show Mr. Altschuler’s committee had about $800,000 cash on hand to Mr. Bishop’s $1.53 million at the end of June, the most recent filing date.

• Maybe it has to do with where I live or the fact that I’m a registered blank, but I seemed to be receiving a lot more campaign mailers from Mr. Altschuler than Mr. Bishop. Is that the case for all of you?

• For those of us you who might have missed the debate we co-sponsored at Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead last week, the second part of the debate is scheduled for October 15 at Bridgehampton High School. Joe Shaw, executive editor of The Press New Group in Southampton, will moderate that debate.

While the first 45 minutes of the first debate the two East End media companies sponsored focused entirely on health care, the second will focus on jobs and the economy.

• My apologies to readers who wanted to watch the debate live on our website Thursday night, but couldn’t due to technical issues. We tested the internet connection and the live feed to mixed results a couple of times last week. While a test broadcast was uninterrupted earlier in the day Thursday, we couldn’t connect at the time of the debate. We’ve since posted debate video that features all but the first 10 minutes, when we were trying to transmit live.

• I promised a couple of readers who emailed me or wrote to me on Twitter that I’d weigh in on the debate with a column. After given it some thought, I felt it better to hold off until after the second part. So look out for that column in a couple weeks.

gparpan@timesreview.com