WASHINGTON Democrats have locked in the votes to block Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, meaning Republicans will have to take the extreme step of using the so-called nuclear option to blow up Senate rules to confirm him.

Democratic senators have been vowing for weeks to deny a vote to President Donald Trump s court pick, and have been inching closer to the 41 members they needed to filibuster him. They hit the magic number on Monday when Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) announced he will join the blockade.

I will be voting against cloture, Coons said, using technical terms to mean he will support the Democratic filibuster, unless we are able, as a body, to finally sit down and find a way to avoid the nuclear option and ensure that the process to fill the next vacancy on the Court is not a narrowly partisan process.

Republicans now have a choice: cave to Democrats demands that Trump put forward a different nominee (highly unlikely) or unilaterally change the rules so they can confirm Gorsuch without Democrats (likely). Theyre signaling theyre prepared to use the nuclear option, a rarely invoked procedural maneuver, to lower the threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes to advance a Supreme Court nominee. There are currently 52 Republicans, so the rule change would mean they could confirm Gorsuch on their own.