WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders pushed a sweeping highways-student loans package salvaging millions of construction jobs and maintaining low interest rates on millions of new college loans toward a House vote Friday even as conservative groups mounted a last-minute and likely futile campaign against it.

Favorable action by the Senate on what would be the only big jobs measure Congress has enacted this year was assured. Leaders said they hoped get it done Thursday night, but then ran into procedural hurdles that pushed back a vote until Friday. Lawmakers in both parties hoped to get an early start bragging about a rare accomplishment four months before the election.