"Schumer blinked."

Those were the words on many GOP senators' lips one day after Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) forced the majority leader to hold a vote on the Marine chief who was ensnared in his blockade on Pentagon nominees.

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The move was, in some sense, ironic. Over six months, Tuberville had built a logjam of 300 high-ranking nominees in protest of the department's abortion policy, only to help relieve that logjam for one of its most valuable appointees. Yet it quickly became a tactical and messaging victory for Tuberville.

Before Tuberville could walk to the floor to file a cloture vote on Wednesday, a highly unusual step for a rank-and-file member that required him to collect signatures from his Republican colleagues, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) preempted him. Instead, he teed up the votes on the Marine commandant and two others himself despite vowing for months he would not do so.

Tuberville's hold only keeps the Senate from considering military promotions in batches, as is done routinely in the chamber. But Schumer has argued voting on them one by one would incentivize bad behavior by senators looking to blockade future nominees.

His decision to preempt Tuberville was not only an about-face — it helped Republicans argue it was Schumer, not Tuberville, who was standing in the way of these nominees being confirmed.

"Sen. Schumer can bring up any one of these nominees anytime he wants. He blinked. He brought up three. He can continue to do that," Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said. "Nothing’s stopping him."

The turn of events was the first real movement in a saga that, for months, largely consisted of theater as Democrats railed on Tuberville over the effect his holds were having on military readiness.

Yet even as the party experienced a setback, Democrats assured reporters the next day that nothing fundamentally had changed. Despite Tuberville's refusal to budge, the Pentagon's policy, which pays for the travel expenses of servicewomen receiving out-of-state abortions, has remained in place.

What's more, the move by Tuberville, who considers the policy to be a violation of the Hyde Amendment, appeared to show the pressure he is under from a Republican conference that, while it supports his overarching goal, has grown tired of the tactic of holding nominations captive.

"Frankly, I think Sen. Tuberville was under so much pressure that he felt he had to go down and get the commandant confirmed, and then we used that opportunity to get the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the commandant of the Marine Corps, and the U.S. Army," Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

Republicans dispute the idea that they're pressuring Tuberville, even as they acknowledge they've had extensive conversations with him trying to find an off-ramp. But Democrats hope his decision to resort to a cloture vote is a harbinger that Tuberville will soon fold.

"The tide is turning against him. And I think we just continue to put pressure on the Republican caucus to come up with a solution for this, because they're the ones that are enabling him and they're complicit in this," Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), another member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

Confirming the three nominees, each a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, takes away some of that pressure, at least temporarily, and Democratic leadership is considering whether to put two other Joint Chiefs nominees up for a vote now that the dam has broken.

But Tuberville's blockade continues to place stress on the military's chain of command as hundreds of officers wear two hats while waiting to move on to their new roles.

That means Republicans are saddled with the optics of undermining the military, all while opposing abortion rights, a topic that has galvanized Democratic and swing voters since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.

"The narrative right now is benefiting" the Democrats, said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), an adviser to Republican leadership in the Senate. "I mean, how often have you walked these halls and had the Democrat Party generally perceived as the pro-defense party? But we're at risk of having that kind of perception."

Yes, Republicans can more easily shift the blame to Schumer, but as long as they stand with Tuberville, they lend Democrats a political cudgel.

Tillis resisted the idea that Schumer had capitulated, arguing that his decision to preempt Tuberville kept the floor under his control. Moreover, it allowed Democrats to be seen as the ones moving the nominees, not Republicans.

"If I'm Schumer, I probably wouldn't be doing substantially much different than he's doing," he said.

Yet Democrats are clearly frustrated by Republican taunts. Asked if the Senate should process more nominees, as the GOP is calling on Schumer to do, a normally subdued Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the majority whip of the chamber, sounded exasperated.

"We cannot achieve that goal by going individually or even with groups of three," he said. "Please do the math before you ask a question like that."

Democrats note that it would take weeks to work through the backlog of Pentagon nominees, which is expected to grow to more than 600 by the end of the year. Even if Tuberville gives consent to hold the confirmation votes more quickly, as he did on Wednesday and Thursday, it would be an enormous undertaking for the Senate.

For that reason, Democrats are dangling the prospect of changing Senate rules to circumvent Tuberville's holds over Republicans' heads. Schumer, who has so far resisted the "nuclear option," noted on Wednesday that his Democratic colleagues have been urging the step in what amounted to a veiled threat from the Senate floor.

"I think we should change the rule and move everybody at once," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), an Armed Services Democrat, said. "We should not allow blanket holds for anybody. It's inappropriate, and it stops government."

The counterargument to that is Schumer should have never let the backlog grow this large in the first place. It would have been manageable earlier in the year, Republicans say.

"I do not think we need a rules change because he can bring them up," Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Republican leadership, said. "If he had started in May, we would be done."

But even Republicans acknowledge the current path is unsustainable. The threat of a rules change adds to the pressure from Democrats, who say Republican leaders need to get Tuberville to relent.

The Senate operates by unanimous consent, meaning only Tuberville can decide whether to drop his holds. But Republicans have floated a number of strategies to resolve the crisis.

Ernst and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, tried to convince Tuberville to drop his holds this summer in exchange for a vote on the policy. Schumer offered that vote to him as the Senate considered its annual defense bill, but Tuberville declined, arguing it's incumbent upon the Pentagon to reverse itself.

Other GOP senators have suggested, among other solutions, that Tuberville narrow his hold to civilian officers involved in the policy.

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"Keep voting, but maybe we could find a compromise on the policy," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a Republican defense hawk, said. "There are all kinds of potential opportunities."

"Hopefully, we'll have a breakthrough here," he added. "Time will tell."