WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court prepared for his initial courtesy calls with senators Thursday as Democrats began the next phase of their drive to put unbearable election-year pressure on Republicans refusing to consider any Obama pick.

Merrick Garland planned to meet with two top Democrats, a day after Obama finally gave a name, face and judicial record to his effort to fill the vacancy left by last month’s death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

But even before Garland — a 63-year-old moderate, a top appellate court judge and former prosecutor — could hold his first meeting, the Senate’s Republican leader indicated he would not budge from his party’s refusal to consider a replacement for Scalia until the next president takes office in January.

Stating what he called “an obvious point,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the two parties disagree over filling the vacancy and it is time for lawmakers to turn to other issues.

“Republicans think the people deserve a voice in this critical decision, the president does not,” he said.

Garland planned to meet with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which considers judicial nominations.

The White House said that after a two-week Senate recess, Garland will meet with the committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley has been a chief focus of Democratic attacks for refusing to let the committee hold a hearing for anyone Obama picked, helping to doom the nomination.

McConnell has refused to meet with Garland. But the planned meeting with Grassley — which his aides conceded could occur — underscored a willingness by a small but growing cadre of GOP senators to say they’d see the nominee, and in some cases take the process even further.

“I meet with anybody, and that would include him,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

Flake said if a Democrat were elected president in November, he would want the Senate to consider Garland’s nomination during a postelection, lame-duck session because “between him and somebody that a President Clinton might nominate, I think the choice is clear.”

Flake’s comment showed how Obama and the leading Democratic presidential contender, Hillary Clinton, have had a good cop-bad cop effect on some Republicans, who consider Clinton likely to make a more liberal selection should she enter the White House.

GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Susan Collins of Maine, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rob Portman of Ohio also expressed an openness to meeting with Garland. Ayotte and Portman are among a half-dozen GOP senators in competitive re-election contests who Democrats hope will be pressured into backing hearings and a vote on Garland or be punished for their refusal by voters.

Opposition by most Republicans means Garland’s confirmation remains an uphill climb.