Yet with Judge Gorsuch’s nomination expected to clear a committee vote and proceed to the Senate floor next week, other Democrats remain confident that he will not earn the support necessary to break a filibuster. This would require at least eight Democratic senators to join the Republicans’ 52-seat majority.

“It’s an uphill struggle for them to get 60,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said of Republicans in an interview on Thursday at his office in the Capitol.

Mr. Schumer accused Senate Republicans of “trying to play brinkmanship” by hinting strongly that they will seat Judge Gorsuch one way or another, even if it requires a change in longstanding rules to allow him to be elevated on a simple majority vote.

Mr. Schumer was notably unsparing in his criticism of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who last year refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick B. Garland, during a presidential election year.

“He’s very willing to act to the detriment of the Senate to fulfill his own political goals,” Mr. Schumer said of his counterpart.