Finding a successor for Santos appears to be no easy task for the Republicans

If New York Republicans had hoped to turn the page on George Santos’s embarrassing saga quickly and cleanly, the week since his expulsion from Congress hasn’t exactly gone as planned.

While party leaders were in the suburbs of Long Island playing out the crucial special election to replace him, it emerged that one of their top candidates for the nomination, Mazi Melesa Pilip, was not technically a Republican at all, but a registered Democrat.

Another Republican who entered the race earlier this year was convicted of participating in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Rumors leaked that party officials were interviewing a more serious candidate: a former state lawmaker known to have potentially damaging ties to Mr. Santos through a bizarre business proposition that one person said resembled the classic e-mail program with a Nigerian prince.

And documents were unearthed in news reports showing that another frontrunner, Mike Sapraicone, had not only been indicted for withholding evidence in a murder case as a New York City police officer, but had later made political contributions totaling $40,000 to an unexpected recipient: the race. Democratic candidate Tom Suozzi.

The flood of revelations washed away the message of order and unity that key Republicans tried to convey in the wake of Santos’ hurricane. And suspicions that many of the unsavory revelations about the candidates had been spread in the press by rival Republican camps led some to worry that the party was playing squarely into the hands of Democrats.

“It definitely looks messy,” said Chapin Fay, a Republican political consultant who is advising some candidates. “Let the Republicans commit suicide before a candidate is chosen.”

In many ways, Republicans’ predicament is the result of their determination to prevent a repeat of Mr. Santos. The federally indicted serial fabulist slipped through Republican and Democratic ranks in 2020 and 2022, winning the seat connecting Queens and Nassau County last fall before his entire life story began to unravel as a series of fabrications and outright fraud.

Joseph Cairo, the Nassau County Republican chairman who is leading the selection process, sees Mr. Santos as a blemish on his personal record. He brought in Peter King, a popular former congressman, to help lead the screening of about two dozen contenders, saying he would likely select only a candidate who was already well known in the party. He has also sought external help from research firms to identify major vulnerabilities before making the nomination.

“For some people, it’s a personal thing: Hey, a mistake was made, this man has tarnished our party, this is our chance to put it right,” Mr. Cairo said in a recent interview.

But that takes time, and as Cairo’s deliberations drag on into another week, the candidates and their allies appear to have taken matters into their own hands as they hunt for damaging information to strengthen their case or that of a to harm rival. The ownership details have been checked. Digged up old podcasts. Voting data checked.

Even Mr. Santos took a break from shooting lucrative videos on Cameo to stir the pot. exhorting his followers to call Mr. Cairo and insist that he not choose “a Democrat in Republican skin,” like Ms. Pilip or Mr. Sapraicone.

The Democrats have had their own clumsiness. On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul had Mr. Suozzi drive to Albany, where he all but groaned for her support. But there was never really any doubt that the famously centrist former congressman would be his party’s choice, and Democrats quickly agreed on his nomination when it was finalized Thursday.

Mr. Fay, who started his career as an opposition researcher, argued that mudslinging now could actually help shield the eventual Republican nominee from key weaknesses by the time the Feb. 13 special election rolls around.

Especially for Ms. Pilip, who has become a top candidate thanks to a remarkable political biography, being outed as a registered Democrat in a district that leans slightly to the left may not be such a big deal. In fact, crossover appeal has helped before: Ms. Pilip, a black former member of the Israeli army, flipped a local legislative district in Great Neck in 2021 while on the Republican Party ballot line.

In a statement, Mr. Cairo indicated that the registration belonged to Ms. Pilip first reported by Politico, was not new to the party leaders. He said they had long supported her because she was “philosophically in sync with the Republican team.”

The hits against other Republican hopefuls could be more problematic.

Take Mr. Sapraicone. On Monday, Politico reported this on a 2021 lawsuit accused him and other former New York Police Department detectives of coercing a false confession and suppressing exculpatory evidence that kept a man behind bars for 20 years. (He denied knowledge of the lawsuit.)

An old one on Wednesday news report resurfaced over his donations to Mr. Suozzi, which Mr. Sapraicone cited as evidence of his own centrism. And on Thursday, Politico had another item report how things go a podcast earlier this year, the Republican described that he was once afraid of a police officer because he was black. The Sapraicone campaign said the story was meant to show how he had transcended a sheltered upbringing to embrace “diverse communities” as a police officer.

In an interview, Mr. Sapraicone said he was determined not to be upset.

“This is all new water to me,” he said. “I see these sharp elbows coming left and right here. I don’t think any of this stuff is productive, no matter where it comes from.”

Philip Sean Grillo, who declared himself a candidate that he would run for the seat in May certainly didn’t help the party’s cause when he was convicted in the January 6 case. A flurry of headlines linked him to Mr. Santos and the special election, although his candidacy was never taken seriously.

Party leaders also privately dealt with difficult potential issues involving more serious candidates, such as Michael LiPetri, the former Republican lawmaker. Mr. LiPetri is well-liked within Long Island Republican circles, but his nomination would almost certainly open the party to more Santos-like attacks.

The New York Times reported last summer that Mr. LiPetri teamed up with Mr. Santos to approach a campaign donor with an unusual proposal. They asked the donor to set up a limited liability company to help a wealthy, unnamed Polish citizen buy cryptocurrency while his fortune was apparently frozen in a bank account. The deal never went through.

Mr. LiPetri, who tried to downplay his role when The Times initially revealed his involvement, did not respond to request for comment.

Cheerful Democratic operatives who were already digging said they could package all the revelations into ammunition for the general election if given the chance.

“We wish the Grand Old Party the best in their failed efforts,” said Ellie Dougherty, spokeswoman for the House Democrats’ campaign arm, calling the other party “dysfunctional.”

But not every Republican was concerned. A veteran of hard-fought campaigns on Long Island said his fellow Republicans should stop the hand-wringing.

“All that sniping between the people who support X, Y and Z?” said Republican, former Senator Alfonse D’Amato. “Doesn’t mean anything in the final.”