Local leaders are closely watching to see what names will crop up as candidates to fill Rachael Rollins’s seat as Suffolk Co. district attorney on an interim basis if, as seems likely, she is confirmed as the state’s US attorney by the US Senate.

Republican Gov. Baker will make that decision, which will remain in effect through next year’s federal and state elections.

The office, which has 160 attorneys and employs 300 people in total, handles 20,000 cases a year.

As rumors about a nomination for her swirled earlier this year, Rollins weighed in on Twitter on who should replace her as DA. She noted that governors have typically followed the exiting DA’s preference for a replacement. 

“FYI, when DA’s leave, at least all the men that did before I was elected, they recommend (tell) the governor who should replace them,” she wrote in April.

Rollins, according to the Boston Globe, has recommended her first assistant Daniel Mulhern, who has worked for former Mayor Walsh and former District Attorney Dan Conley, as her successor.

City Councillor At-Large Michael Flaherty, who is running for reelection, is said to have expressed interest in the job. A South Boston resident, he is a former assistant district attorney.

But others say Baker should appoint someone in the same vein as Rollins, who has scaled back prosecutions of some low-level offenses.

“We can’t have it so that the governor goes and appoints someone who is opposite from what the community elected,” said state Rep. Russell Holmes, a Mattapan Democrat. “She was elected from a very progressive thought process on how we should deal with the role of DA and I think that’s who should be appointed for the next year and a half.”

Hyde Park City Councillor Ricardo Arroyo said that if Rollins is confirmed, Suffolk County is losing a “great” district attorney with a “steel backbone.

“We decided as an electorate overwhelmingly that we wanted a progressive prosecutor, someone who was going to move forward with criminal justice reform, somebody who was going to make steps to de-carcerate and to push for diversion programs,” he said. “I think anybody who’s getting this role needs to continue and elevate on those things.”

He added: “My hope is, and I don’t know how real or not it is with a Republican governor, but my hope is that we end up with a progressive prosecutor in that role. Ideally, somebody who is either a woman or a person of color who has the perspective of folks like Rachael does.”