Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill says essentially stopped talking publicly about her thought process on how she’ll vote next week. | AP Photo McCaskill agonizes over Gorsuch

Neil Gorsuch might not be the hill for Senate Democrats to die on, in the view of moderate Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill says she is so in the "vortex" of the battle to confirm Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee that she's essentially stopped talking publicly about her thought process on how she’ll vote next week.


But behind closed doors back in Missouri, she said she is mortified about where the Senate is headed if Gorsuch is blocked and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell changes the Senate rules to kill the 60-vote threshold on Supreme Court nominees, according to audio obtained by the Kansas City Star.

The Missouri senator, who faces a tough reelection campaign in 2018, reasoned that the Gorsuch nomination will not change the balance of the court, and is a "Scalia for Scalia" substitution, referring to the existing vacancy on the court left by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. But if McConnell changes the rules for Gorsuch, McCaskill worries that one of the more liberal justices will be replaced by a conservative and alter the balance of the court forever.

"God forbid, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, or (Anthony) Kennedy retires or (Stephen) Breyer has a stroke or is no longer able to serve," McCaskill said, according to the Star. "Then all of a sudden the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy."

She added: "I am very comfortable voting against [Gorsuch], but I’m very uncomfortable being part of a strategy that’s going to open up the Supreme Court to a complete change."

A spokesman for McCaskill said she has not decided how she will vote on the nominee, either on his final confirmation vote or on the filibuster vote where Gorsuch needs eight Democrats to join with 52 Republicans to clear the 60-vote threshold.

McCaskill is among a small group of centrist Democrats who are openly worried about their party's expected filibuster of Gorsuch, which would almost surely be followed by a unilateral GOP rules change to gut the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees, the so-called "nuclear option." But efforts at crafting a bipartisan deal to head of the fight have stalled — and McCaskill declined to discuss the issue on Wednesday.

“I am so in the vortex of this right now,” she said in a brief interview. “I just can’t talk about it.”

Republicans are expected to attack McCaskill for opposing Trump's agenda if she votes against Gorsuch, which may not fly in a state Trump won by 19 points in November.

But she'll also likely face blowback from the left if she votes for him.

“The Gorsuch situation is really hard. There are going to be people in this room that are going to say, ‘No, no, no. You cannot vote for Gorsuch,’ ” McCaskill said, according to the Star.