WASHINGTON – Democrats secured enough votes Monday to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination for the Supreme Court, setting up a historic showdown on the Senate floor later this week.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) became the 41st Democrat to declare he’d vote against ending discussion on Gorsuch’s nomination, meaning the Colorado jurist won’t get the 60 votes necessary in the full Senate on Friday.

“I’m not ready to end debate,” Coons said during a Judiciary Committee hearing.

“So I will be voting against cloture.”

Without the votes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to resort to the so-called “nuclear” option and change Senate rules to require just 51 votes to confirm a Supreme Court nominee.

McConnell pledged Sunday Gorsuch would be confirmed this week – before the Senate goes on a two-week Easter recess. If he resorts to the nuclear option, it would set the stage for polarizing judges to be confirmed in the future with just the support of the party in power.

“We are headed to a world where you don’t need one person from the other side to pick a judge,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lamented. “And what does that mean? That means the judges are going to be more ideological, not less. It means that every Senate seat is going to be a referendum on the Supreme Court … I think the damage done to the Senate is going to be real.”

Earlier Monday, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy also announced they’d support the filibuster by voting against advancing Gorsuch.