WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump's nomination of a Supreme Court justice late Tuesday is the moment Democratic leaders and sympathetic activists have been eagerly awaiting for months: the chance to seek revenge for what some see as a stolen seat.
It's also the most important part of a broader leadership effort to delay and derail Trump administration initiatives and nominees. Democrats protested all over Capitol Hill on Tuesday. But whether they can keep the Senate's 46 Democrats and two independents unified is another matter, since 10 Democrats are up for re-election in 2018 in states Trump won.
Party leaders, backed by an array of sympathetic interest groups, are on the march. Lawmakers and activists rallied at the Supreme Court on Monday night to protest Trump's immigration order.
Tuesday, Senate Democrats boycotted a Senate Finance Committee meeting held to consider the nominations of Steven Mnuchin for Treasury secretary and Tom Price for Health and Human Services secretary.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has vowed he'll try to delay nominations until Republicans work with him to overturn Trump's immigration order. The Friday order barred the entry of all refugees for 120 days and the entry of noncitizens from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days.
Schumer and four other Democrats voted against Elaine Chao as Transportation secretary, angry that she hadn't answered their questions about airport chaos last weekend after Trump issued his immigration order.
"'Advise and consent' doesn't mean 'Ram the nominees through,'" Schumer said.
The big battle will involve the Supreme Court, and the mobilization was in full swing Tuesday.
Democrats have been steaming since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused last year to even hold a hearing for President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland. The Kentucky Republican is now demanding that Democrats allow Trump's nominee an up-or-down vote.
"The same groups on the left who always seem to say the sky is falling when a Republican president puts forward a Supreme Court nominee are saying it's falling again," he said. "Only this time, they're saying it before we even have a nominee."
Eager for this fight are Schumer, the newly installed Senate Democratic leader, who is facing his first tests, and a savvy array of liberal groups that plan to apply intense pressure to anyone willing to work with Republicans to vet Trump's Supreme Court pick.
"We foresee a groundswell of opposition to any of the names on Trump's list from people across America," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, a liberal watchdog group. "The senators are going to be hearing from hundreds of thousands and more asking them to oppose the Supreme Court nomination."
Alliance for Justice is among a coalition of organizations preparing to launch anti-nominee social media campaigns, internet and broadcast ads, and a protest at the Supreme Court on Tuesday night as soon as Trump announces his nominee.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said he'd filibuster the nomination.
"This is the seat that Mitch McConnell and team have stolen from President Obama. I won't be complicit in this theft," Merkley said Monday as he circulated an online petition to stop Trump's nominee.
Key Democrats are being guarded at the moment about strategy. Schumer wouldn't say what his approach will be on the Senate floor before a nominee was chosen. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has a similar attitude.
"As with all nominees, Sen. Feinstein doesn't announce her position before a vote, and certainly not before the person has been named," said Feinstein's spokesman, Tom Mentzer.
Merkley would need 41 senators to maintain extended debate. Democrats control 48 of the Senate's 100 seats.
The biggest variable is the Democrats from the Trump states, which include Florida, Missouri and Pennsylvania. They need to be careful they're not seen as obstructionists, not contributing to the sort of impasse voters hate.
"We have to be careful how we go down this road," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said at a recent panel discussion in Washington. Manchin is up for re-election next year in a state Trump won in a landslide.
"They're balancing the tension between the national Democratic Party that wants them to oppose Trump on everything and their electorates who voted for Trump and helped get him into the Oval Office," said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections. "The Supreme Court is going to be one of the highest-profile decisions that the president will make."
Interest groups have been building to this point since Trump took office Jan. 20. First came the Women's March on Washington and other cities, which drew millions. Last weekend, thousands more rallied at airports across the country to oppose the new president's executive order denying entry to refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
A large-scale social media campaign in combination with protests can make a difference, said Michele Jawando, former general counsel to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
"Around the country people are starting to understand that we need a real check on executive power and that's what the courts are," Jawando said.
Former Obama administration officials and groups involved in the Women's March on Washington are among those discussing strategies to oppose the nominee, she said.
