WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats’ hopes to expand voting rights died Wednesday afternoon when Senate Republicans blocked voting on a bill that would have established Election Day as a public holiday and created minimum standards for nationwide voting access.

The failure is sure to intensify pressure from progressives on their party leaders to eliminate the filibuster.

The Freedom to Vote bill, which would have created a pathway for challenging new voting laws in federal court and required additional disclosures of campaign spending and fundraising, was widely seen by advocates as the best chance to protect voting rights ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key moderate Democrat who opposes abolishing the filibuster, co-sponsored the bill and sought to include provisions that would ensure Republican support.

The bill failed to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a Republican filibuster and end debate. The filibuster prevented the legislation from reaching the Senate floor, where Vice President Kamala Harris would have cast the deciding vote in the evenly split chamber.

President Joe Biden, who also opposes eliminating the filibuster, called for Republicans to allow a Senate vote on the bill.

“The right to vote — to vote freely, to vote fairly, and to have your vote counted — is fundamental,” Biden said in a statement. “It should be simple and straightforward.”

All Republicans voted against debate, including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Mitt Romney of Utah and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. McConnell denounced the bill as a Democratic attempt to micromanage local elections.

After announcing from the dais that the chamber voted 49-51 against debating the bill, Harris told reporters that it was a “sad day.” “We’re not going to give up,” she said.

Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Wednesday said the Senate is a place where lawmakers “debate, forge compromise, mend and pass legislation to help the American people.”

“The Senate needs to be restored to its rightful status as the world’s greatest deliberative body,” said the New York Democrat, who voted against the motion in a procedural move that would allow him to again bring up the bill.

In a letter to colleagues last week, Schumer applauded Manchin for reaching across the aisle, saying he has “been engaged in conversations with our Republican colleagues in hopes of advancing solutions on a bipartisan basis to ensure all Americans have their voice heard in our democracy.”

Schumer said he was hopeful Republicans would “come to the table to have (a) conversation and at the very least vote to open debate.”