Nojey claimed 58 percent of the vote on Tuesday, placing him almost 1,000 votes ahead of his rival, Richard Milne, according to preliminary results.

The local party leaders now have 10 days to agree on a candidate to replace Nojay and represent the Republicans in the upcoming election for New York's lower chamber. Although they could pick the challenger Milne, they are under no obligation to do so, and other names are also in play for the New York State district.

Milne described the outcome as "disappointing."

"I really believe we would have fared better with Mr. Nojay still alive," he said.

Charges in Cambodia

A lawyer and a radio talk show host, Nojay opposed gun control laws and vocally supported the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. According to his biography, he was also a research fellow at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal.

However, Nojay was facing a fraud trial in Cambodia on suspicion of cheating an investor out of $1 million (0.89 million euros) for a rice-exporting venture. Several media outlets also reported he was due to surrender to the FBI over a separate case of fraud.

The New York Daily News reported that Nojay had told his lawyer on Friday about his plans to commit suicide rather than go into custody and subsequently went to his family cemetery plot in Rochester. The lawyer alerted the authorities who sent an officer to the scene, but the assemblyman took his own life before they could intervene.

Rival slams 'the powers that be'

Nojay's opponent Milne suspended his campaign for several days after the suicide. However, the GOP party bosses called on people to vote for Nojay anyway as a tribute to his life and legacy, according to Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Speaking to the Associated Press news agency on Tuesday, Milne criticized "the powers that be" for trying to boost Nojay's numbers with robocalls and other strategies after his death.

"They really did some things in the past few days that were in poor taste in my opinion to sway the vote," he said.

Milne also said he had written to the three party chairmen and asked them to pick him as the GOP's candidate for the assembly in upstate New York.

The rural 133rd district is traditionally votes Republican, meaning that the GOP candidate is virtually guaranteed to win the vote in November.