MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) – Fresh from a landslide re-election victory in Nassau County — once one of the country’s foremost Republican strongholds — Thomas Suozzi appears poised to cash in his political capital by challenging Eliot Spitzer for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Although a relative unknown, Suozzi’s dreams of launching from the county executive’s seat in Mineola to the governor’s mansion in Albany could get a boost of rocket fuel if Ken Langone, the billionaire founder of Home Depot, follows through on his promise to pump millions into a Suozzi primary challenge. Langone is a Spitzer foe who has tangled with the politician over his Wall Street crackdown.

“Maybe that Wall Street money will win him some recognition,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. Carroll said it was unlikely Suozzi would be discouraged by a poll last month that showed Spitzer — the two-term state attorney general — holding a commanding 69-11 lead over his potential challenger. The primary is not until September.

“Spitzer has a five-lap lead, sure,” Carroll said. “But it’s only January. … The guy (Suozzi) is real.”

Suozzi has yet to officially announce he is a candidate, but published reports said he planned to announce an exploratory committee on Friday — the birthday of his late brother Joe and the date he first announced his candidacy for county executive five years ago.

His spokeswoman declined to comment on Wednesday, and Suozzi would not discuss a timetable for any possible entry into the race.

If he does run, he will have to upset a better-known and better-financed candidate who already has the blessing of many party elders thirsting for victory after 12 years of Republican Gov. George Pataki.

But he also has a powerful ally in Langone, who was sued by Spitzer over the compensation controversy involving former New York Stock Exchange CEO Richard A. Grasso. Langone, a Nassau County resident, formerly served on the board of directors of the NYSE.

He has been harshly critical of Spitzer and vows to raise “as much money as I can to help Tom Suozzi” defeat the attorney general. “I will leave no stone unturned to help Tom Suozzi wage a very successful and effective campaign,” Langone told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Langone contended Spitzer “will not engender confidence among business” if he is elected governor.

The businessman insisted, however, that he is supporting Suozzi because “he’s done a marvelous recovery job in Nassau County. … He’s done a wonderful job. He’s focused like I’ve never seen a politician in my life.”

A spokesman for Spitzer declined to comment.

Taking on the party establishment is not a new role for Suozzi, a brash, 43-year-old lawyer and accountant.

First elected mayor of Glen Cove at 31, the married father of three established himself as a maverick by defeating his party’s choice for county executive in a 2001 primary. In 2004, he created the FixAlbany campaign, exposing what he called a dysfunctional state legislature. That effort led to the defeat of an incumbent state assemblyman from Nassau County.

The tactic so outraged the state Democratic leadership that they left him off the roster of delegates at his party’s national convention; he went to Boston anyway with credentials provided by Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign.

Suozzi coasted to re-election victory in November, boasting of having cured the fiscal health of Nassau County, where voters for decades elected no one but Republicans. Thanks to a 19.4 percent tax hike and infusions of cash from a state agency created to help solve Nassau’s fiscal woes, Suozzi engineered 10 upgrades in the county’s bond rating. When he took office in 2002, Nassau’s finances teetered on junk bond status.

Despite growing talk that he has ambitions beyond Long Island, Suozzi demurs about talk of a governor’s race. “I’m very flattered by the increasing speculation and interest,” he says.

In the same conversation, however, he outlined four key issues he predicted will be important for “whoever runs for governor.” Those issues are high property taxes, low-performing schools in New York City and elsewhere; the underperforming upstate economy; and affordable housing in the New York City area.

Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who has worked for Spitzer in the past, predicted both candidates will attempt to present themselves as reformers: Suozzi as the man taking on the political establishment; Spitzer as the man taking on corruption on Wall Street.

Suozzi, who has about $4 million in his campaign war chest compared to Spitzer’s estimated $12 million or more, will need to be careful he is not perceived as a lackey for Langone, political observers said.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Sheinkopf says. “He helps raise money, but it potentially hurts because it gives Spitzer an argument against Suozzi.”

Suozzi, who noted Langone has previously contributed to his campaign for county executive, insists he is not beholden to anyone.

“I’ve been in elected office for 12 years and no individual or supporter or contributor is going to influence, or has ever influenced my decisions or actions and my record speaks for that,” Suozzi said.

Of Langone, he said that the billionaire “doesn’t need or want anything from government.”

Suozzi is slowly starting to attract some media attention. He was recently the subject of a profile in New York magazine and commentator John McLaughlin raised eyebrows this month from his panel of political pundits when he tapped the Long Island Democrat as “destined for political stardom.”

“With Suozzi in the race, all bets are off,” McLaughlin bellowed.