Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
President Trump will tie Barack Obama tonight for Supreme Court nominees, announcing his second choice after only 18 months in office.
The bottom line: Absent a major Trump surprise in primetime, this nominee will shift the court substantially to the right.
His shortlist: Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Thomas Hardiman and Raymond Kethledge. [Go deeper]
As Axios' Sam Baker noted on Twitter: "Do you think Trump will nominate the very conservative appellate judge, the very conservative appellate judge, the very conservative appellate judge, or the very conservative appellate judge?"
Be smart... You can ignore most of the reactions to tonight's choice. We're paying attention to the following list:
- Vulnerable red state Senate Democrats: Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, Joe Donnelly, Bill Nelson and Heidi Heitkamp.
- Moderate Republicans: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski.
- Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- Legal experts: Neal Katyal, Elizabeth Wydra, Steve Vladeck, Randy Barnett, Orrin Kerr, Ed Whelan.
Stay tuned: We'll alert the name when Trump says it, and we'll have the above list's reactions on Axios.com as soon as we can.