WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., took to the Senate floor yesterday to make the case for a filibuster of the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., but only a handful of fellow Democrats seemed likely to join him.

"This is a fight worth making, because it is a fight for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court," the 2004 Democratic nominee for president told his colleagues.

On Monday, the Senate will vote on a cloture motion by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. If 60 senators vote for the motion, debate on the nomination will end and a final roll call vote will be held Tuesday morning, in time for Judge Alito to be sworn in as a Supreme Court justice before President Bush's State of the Union address that evening.

Republicans and some Democrats ridiculed the Kerry filibuster effort, which was announced Thursday when Mr. Kerry was attending the World Economic Forum in Davis, Switzerland. On Thursday, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., undercut the filibuster effort by publicly thanking the Republican majority for affording "adequate time to talk about this most important nomination."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who served as a point man for the Alito nomination on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the filibuster threat a "stunt."

"A bipartisan majority of the Senate agrees that Judge Alito deserves to be confirmed, and on Tuesday, despite the last gasps of the outside groups, he will be confirmed," Mr. Cornyn added.