By Lauren Phillips, CQ Staff

The Republicans’ already imperiled efforts to hold onto their seat in New York’s 13th Congressional District took a tragic turn Sunday with the sudden death of Frank Powers, the former Wall Street executive endorsed by the local GOP after a personal scandal forced Republican Rep. Vito J. Fossella last month to drop his bid for re-election. And though GOP officials maintained a traditional reticence Monday in the immediate aftermath of Powers’ passing, the party will have little time to lose in picking a new candidate before the state’s July 10 filing deadline.

“This has come as quite a shock to both the Powers family as well as to our own county committee,” said John Friscia, the Republican Party chairman in the New York City borough of Staten Island, also known as Richmond County, which makes up about three-quarters of the 13th District’s population. “Given the circumstances and in deference to the family and their loss, I think that it would be inappropriate, at this time, for me to comment any further regarding other candidates.”

The 67-year-old Powers, who died of a heart attack, had a long-standing involvement with the Republican Party, was known as an effective fundraiser and served on the board of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. But he had never before run for public office, and he was tapped for the House race only after several better-known Republican officeholders bowed out of the running.

The Democratic Party establishment, by contrast, rallied around a politically experienced and willing candidate in New York City Councilman Michael McMahon as their choice for the unexpected open-seat race in the 13th District — even though McMahon is still opposed for the Sept. 9 primary by lawyer Stephen A. Harrison, who as the party’s underfunded 2006 nominee managed to hold Fossella to a career-low 57 percent of the vote.

CQ Politics recently changed its rating on the 13th District race to No Clear Favorite from Leans Republican, and will be closely monitoring developments as the Republican Party searches for a new candidate.

While no prominent Republican figure has risked decorum by announcing plans to run in place of Powers, some of these potential top-tier contenders — including state Sen. Andrew Lanza, New York City Councilman James Oddo and Richmond County District Attorney Daniel Donovan Jr. — said they remain firm in their decisions not to run.

“This new crisis may spur one of the experienced elected officials to run, maybe one of them will be talked into it,” said Richard Flanagan, associate professor of political science at the College of Staten Island.

There even was some speculation that the 43-year-old Fossella, a one-time GOP rising star first elected to the seat in a 1997 special election, might reconsider the retirement decision he made after his early May arrest on a drunken driving charge exposed an extramarital relationship in which the married father of three admitted to having a 3-year-old daughter. But a Fossella spokesman said the congressman has not changed his mind about staying out of the race.

Though Republican Party officials they are unlikely to publicly concede the seat they have long held in New York City’s most strongly Republican district, Flanagan suggested they could decide that the disastrous first half of this year has already doomed them to lose in November. In that case, Flanagan said, they must consider “how do they lose in a way that doesn’t damage other candidates that are running for state offices?”

At the least, the Republican recruiters will be looking for a lesser-known candidate who could run a credible and possible competitive race. Among those considered possible picks under this scenario are Lisa Giovinazzo and Paul Atanasio.

Giovinazzo, a lawyer, was considered a leading contender during the GOP search that followed Fossella’s withdrawal, though party officials instead opted for Powers. She has some experience as the Republicans’ 2003 opponent to McMahon, though she lost the one-sided city council race with 29 percent of the vote.

Giovinazzo said in an interview with CQPolitics Monday that she has been approached by several people in the party, including Friscia, about running for the seat and is considering it. As a friend of Powers, she said, she’s somewhat reluctant to discuss a candidacy just yet. “The process has to go on, yet we have someone we have to say goodbye to,” she said.

Atanasio, a retired investment banker, also told CQPolitics he was considering running, but is waiting to hear back from party officials and will only run with their full support. He would have a couple of hurdles to clear to achieve that backing: He is registered with New York’s Conservative Party rather than as a Republican, and he lives in Brooklyn, home to the quarter of the district’s population that does not reside in politically dominant Staten Island.