After his starring role in this summer’s Senate coup, the safe assumption was that Pedro Espada would be a marked man in 2010.

But that assumption may have been premature.

The Bronx Democratic Party, focused on refilling its depleted campaign coffers and coalescing around new leader Carl Heastie, has hinted that it will either sit out Espada’s race next year or even go so far as to back the feisty majority leader.

“So far, Espada’s been pretty decent,” one party source said. “I’m not so sure you’re going to find anyone willing to go up against him.”

Where the party stands on Espada will become clearer next spring, after Heastie has had the chance to survey district leaders in the neighborhoods that Espada represents and consider their viability as possible challengers. Party sources have indicated that a likelier target in 2010 will be Assembly Member Nelson Castro, whose district overlaps Espada’s and who has a host of legal problems of his own.

This does not sit well with some Senate Democrats, who are still stinging from Espada’s party-swapping dance in June, the month-long shut-down of the state government and the downward spiral of the Senate’s approval numbers. In the immediate weeks following the coup, there was talk that Espada’s Senate colleagues would take full control of the effort to oust him, going so far as to recruit a qualified candidate and raise the necessary millions to fund the campaign.

But one-by-one, potential challengers have fallen by the wayside.

Lilliam Perez, chief of staff to State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, floated the possibility of her candidacy in the fall, telling a Columbia Journalism school newspaper, “this is not about whether I want to run. … If I am the one who has the best chance of beating him, I have no choice.”

But she has since stepped back.

“I said some people wanted me to run and that I was very upset at the time since I was interviewed the week of the coup,” Perez wrote in an e-mail. “At the moment, I am not running for office.”

Haile Rivera, a community activist who soon after the coup started talking about running, has also taken his name out of contention, and even predicting that any attempt to run against Espada in 2010 will backfire.

“The Espada seat is not something I’m looking at anymore,” Rivera said. “He is my senator, so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

What speculation there has been has circled around a few well known names in the area: Carlos Gonzalez, the son of former State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez (whom Espada defeated in 2008 and who now is facing prison time stemming from a corruption conviction) and Council Member Joel Rivera, the son of deposed party boss Jos' Rivera. But though both are occasionally mentioned, neither have given any real indication of interest in the seat.