Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley will be the choice of New York Democrats for president if Hillary Clinton is forced out of the race by her State Department email scandal, a prominent Democrat has told The Post.

The well-known New York Democrat also said that Clinton’s email scandal had “knocked her off her pedestal,’’ and compared her attempts to restrict access to her official email correspondence to those made by disgraced President Richard M. Nixon during the 1970s Watergate scandal.

O’Malley, an all-but-announced candidate who was on a campaign swing in Iowa over the weekend, “is the one who I think is going to emerge as the front-runner if Hillary is forced out,’’ said the Democrat, a strong Clinton backer whose views carry considerable weight with party members.

“O’Malley’s the one who is best organized. He’s the one who has a team in place. I really think he’s the front-runner,’’ the Democrat continued.

“O’Malley is a guy who has always done the right thing politically. He was a team player who made friends with everybody when he was governor. He would do things for people that I think he thought they’d remember him by, and they did.

“[Mass. Sen.] Elizabeth Warren is just too far to the left, sort of in the George McGovern category, and while [Vice President Joe] Biden’s own people may be taking him seriously, he’s never really been able to catch on,’’ said the Democrat, referring to other potential candidates should Clinton not run.

Clinton, meanwhile, “has been knocked off her pedestal’’ by revelations that she used a questionable private email system for official communications during her years as secretary of state, but “hasn’t yet been sufficiently damaged to be forced out of the race,’’ said the Democrat, who has had frequent contact with the former first lady and New York senator.

“What’s so bad about this is that she mixed her personal emails with her State Department emails and now it’s to be determined what was personal and what was not, which is a tough position.

“It’s a position President Nixon got in with his own tapes. He said they were his own tapes, that he recorded them. But, guess what — he recorded them in the White House, so they’re public.

“I don’t think what she did is fatal. She can still run if she wants, but it was an unnecessary, self-inflicted wound,’’ the Democrat said.

State Sen. Catharine Young of upstate Olean, despite the Senate’s main focus on completing a budget, is continuing her quest to become the body’s next majority leader if, as one insider put it, “the other shoe should drop’’ on current Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau).

That “other shoe’’ would come from US Attorney Preet “Stay Tuned” Bharara, whose high-profile investigation of state government corruption includes examining possible conflicts of interest in the outside law practices of legislators such as Skelos.

“Cathy wants to be in a position where, if something happens to Dean, she’ll be able to make her move and become leader,’’ said a senior Senate Republican.

Former state GOP Executive Director Brendan Quinn noted, “Cathy Young’s name is being bandied about as a possible leader by a lot of different people I’ve spoken with.”

Young, head of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, won points from her colleagues last year while helping oversee the retaking of the Senate by the GOP.

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Faso, crushed by then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2006, is “seriously’’ eyeing a run for Congress next year for the upper Hudson Valley seat being vacated by Rep. Chris Gibson (R-Kinderhook).

“John’s been making the rounds, saying he can raise a good deal of money where others can’t,’’ said a GOP source.