With New York Rep. John M. McHugh now confirmed as secretary of the Army, the special election race to succeed him is about to kick into high gear.

Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback on Wednesday lifted holds on 10 of President Obama’s nominees, including McHugh, after the administration signaled it is not planning to move Guant?!namo detainees to Fort Leavenworth.

The Senate confirmed McHugh, a nine-term Republican, to the post Wednesday evening.

That means the major-party contenders for McHugh’s seat — Democrat Bill Owens , an attorney, and Republican Dede Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman — will soon learn the date for the special election to fill the remainder of the incumbent’s unexpired term. And they’ll have no time to lose before hitting the campaign trail in the largely rural 23rd, one of the most sprawling districts in the Northeast.

State law requires Gov. David A. Paterson , a Democrat, to schedule the special election between 30 and 40 days from the date of his proclamation. Assuming McHugh’s nomination moves swiftly through the Senate, most observers expect the governor to schedule the election to coincide with the regularly scheduled off-year local contests on Nov. 3.

The hold on the nomination left the special election race idling for all of August, but the candidates have stepped up their campaigns since this month began.

On Wednesday, Owens announced the endorsement of state Sen. Darrell Aubertine. Aubertine was local Democrats’ initial preference for the seat. But after several weeks considering his decision, he opted to stay in the state Senate, where his party holds a narrow and tenuous majority.

That prompted Democrats to tap Owens, a Plattsburgh resident who projects a moderate profile. The party hopes that despite limited political experience, he can follow the path charted by Scott Murphy , a businessman and first-time candidate who won a House special election in the neighboring 20th District.

After initially keeping a low profile following his nomination by the district’s Democratic county chairmen, Owens has made more of a splash of late. He attended a fundraiser last week that was hosted by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Scozzafava has a much longer record in public life, as a member of the state Assembly for the past 10 years in the state legislature and as mayor of the village of Gouveneur from 1993 through 1998. Her better name recognition and political credentials in the district may give her at least a slight initial edge heading into the short special election campaign.

The district’s political history also gives Scozzafava a historic, though not certain, partisan advantage. While voters in the 23rd District did give 52 percent of their 2008 presidential votes to Obama — who carried New York by an overwhelming margin — registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats in the 23rd. McHugh never has faced a close general election challenge, and won a ninth House term on the same ballot with 65 percent of the vote.

But Scozzafava’s more defined record has also provided more fodder for her critics, who are zeroing in on her moderate views on social issues — she supports legalizing same-sex marriage and favors some abortion rights — that run counter to conservative Republican Party orthodoxy. The state Conservative Party is fielding its own candidate, Doug Hoffman, deeming Scozzafava too liberal.

Hoffman released a poll conducted for his campaign that showed him with 19 percent of the vote, Owens at 20 percent and Scozzafava at 30 percent. Thirty-one percent were undecided. No independent poll on the race has been yet been published.