WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled Senate is on a path toward defeating tea party attempts to dismantle President Barack Obama’s health care law, despite an overnight talkathon on the chamber’s floor led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The freshman Cruz and other conservative Republicans were trying to delay a must-pass spending bill, but were virtually sure to lose a test vote on that legislation planned for later today.

Since Tuesday afternoon, Cruz — with occasional remarks by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and other GOP conservatives — have controlled the Senate floor and railed against ObamaCare. After 6 a.m. Wednesday, Cruz and his allies had spoken for more than 15-and-a-half hours, the sixth longest since precise record-keeping began in 1900.

That surpassed March’s 12-hour, 52-minute speech by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., like Cruz a tea party lawmaker, and filibusters by such Senate icons as Huey Long of Louisiana and Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

The House-passed measure is required to prevent a government shutdown and contains a tea party-backed provision to “defund” implementation of what’s come to be known as “ObamaCare.” Cruz’s effort doesn’t have a chance to succeed, however, both because Senate rules are working against him and because many of his GOP colleagues think his effort combines poor strategy with grandstanding at the expense of other Republicans.