For months, Democrats in the US Senate have danced delicately around Joe Manchin, giving him space and holding out hope that the West Virginia Democrat would eventually come around and give his must-win vote to legislation that would amount to the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.

That detente effectively ended on Sunday, when Manchin authored an op-ed making it clear he will not vote for the bill, leaving Democrats to find a new path forward – that is, if there is one at all.

Manchin did not raise substantive concerns about the legislation, the For the People Act, in the Senate but rather said that he would only support it if it was bipartisan. He also reiterated his resistance to eliminating the filibuster, a legislative rule that requires 60 votes to move most legislation forward in the Senate. Getting 10 Republicans to sign on to voting rights legislation is a fool’s errand, many observers say, pointing to how the party has embraced Trump’s baseless lies about the election and is actively trying to make it harder to vote.

“Republican intransigence on voting rights is not an excuse for inaction and Senator Manchin must wake up to this fact,” said Karen Hobart Flynn, the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, which backs the bill.

Manchin’s op-ed might as well be titled, ‘Why I’ll vote to preserve Jim Crow'

Manchin’s recalcitrance comes at a moment when there is urgent concern about the health of America’s democracy. Republicans have introduced hundreds of bills across the country to restrict access to the ballot, including sweeping measures in Florida and Georgia and Texas. There is also growing worry about Republican attempts to take over the machinery of elections, including offices that could allow them to block winning candidates from being rightfully seated in office.