Story highlights Blue-collar workers helped propel Trump to the presidency

Hardiman has long been a judicial star

(CNN) Judge Thomas Hardiman -- a top contender for the Supreme Court -- has a personal story that could appeal to President Donald Trump.

Although the 51-year-old judge has reached the top echelons of the US judiciary, he came from modest beginnings. He was the first in his family to graduate from college, and he drove a cab for a time to help pay the bills.

"Tom Hardiman is an interesting mix of two worlds," said Leonard Leo, an adviser to Trump on the Supreme Court search. "On the one hand he is very much in the mold of Justice Scalia, well-schooled on the doctrines of originalism and textualism, and he is very experienced. And yet, at the same time, Judge Hardiman hails from a family of relatively modest means, from an industrial working class city in Western Pennsylvania."

At a campaign rally last year, Trump talked about blue-collar workers -- a constituency that would propel him to the presidency.

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