Richard Wolf

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — They are overwhelmingly white, male and middle-aged. Most hail not from the East or West but from the vast midsection of the country — predominantly red or battleground states. Only half went to the nation's top law schools.

President-elect Donald Trump's 21 potential nominees to the Supreme Court -- the people he has said he will choose from, not just to replace Justice Antonin Scalia but for any other seats that fall vacant -- are straight out of conservative central casting.

When he completed the list in September, Trump promised to "appoint justices who, like Justice Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution." He called them "the kind of scholars that we need to preserve the very core of our country and make it greater than ever before.”

Eleven are federal judges, all put on the bench by President George W. Bush or, in one case, by his father. Nine were named to state supreme courts by Republican governors. Four clerked for the Supreme Court's most conservative justice, Clarence Thomas -- twice as many as any other justice.

The average age of the 17 men and four women — including one African American, one Hispanic and one Asian American — is 53. That likely projects to a quarter century or more on the court.

Here's a look at the potential nominees, including key opinions and dissents that shed light on their jurisprudence. The 11 judges he named in May are listed first, followed by the nine judges and one U.S. senator added in September:

Steven Colloton, 53, Iowa

CURRENT POST: Judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit

BIO: Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2003; Law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Yale Law School

KEY QUOTE: In re Lombardi, 2014, upholding use of lethal injection: "Without a plausible allegation of a feasible and more humane alternative method of execution, or a purposeful design by the state to inflict unnecessary pain, the plaintiffs have not stated an Eighth Amendment claim based on the use of compounded pentobarbital."

Allison Eid, 51, Colorado

Associate justice, Colorado Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Bill Owens, 2006; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; University of Chicago Law School

KEY QUOTE:Regents of the University of Colorado v. Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, 2012, upholding right to carry weapons on college campuses: "The (Concealed Carry Act’s) comprehensive statewide purpose, broad language, and narrow exclusions lead us to conclude that the General Assembly divested the Board of Regents of its authority in this instance."

Raymond Gruender, 53, Missouri

Judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2004; Washington University School of Law

KEY QUOTE:Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, 2012, upholding suicide warnings before abortions: "The suicide advisory is non-misleading and relevant to the patient’s decision to have an abortion.... It is a typical medical practice to inform patients of statistically significant risks that have been associated with a procedure through medical research, even if causation has not been proved definitively."

Thomas Hardiman, 51, Pennsylvania

Judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2007; Georgetown University Law Center

KEY QUOTE:Drake v. Filko, 2013, striking down a "justifiable need” limit on gun possession: "A rationing system that burdens the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right by simply making that right more difficult to exercise cannot be considered reasonably adapted to a governmental interest because it burdens the right too broadly."

Raymond Kethledge, 49, Michigan

Judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2008; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy; University of Michigan Law School

KEY QUOTE: U.S. v. NorCal Tea Party Patriots, 2016, ordering the Internal Revenue Service to turn over a list of targeted conservative groups: "The lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and enforcing its laws — all of them, not just selective ones — in a manner worthy of the department’s name. The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition."

Joan Larsen, 48, Michigan

Associate justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, 2015; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

KEY QUOTE: Yono v. Department of Transportation, 2016, granting government immunity from liability for a motorist's injury in a parallel parking lane: "In common English usage, a parking lane is closer to being a travel lane's antonym than its synonym. To park is to stop; to travel is to go."

Thomas Lee, 51, Utah

Associate chief justice, Utah Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Gary Herbert, 2010; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; University of Chicago Law School

KEY QUOTE: Carranza v. U.S., 2011, determining that a fetus that dies in utero is a child: "Given that minor children have tort claims when they survive a tortious act in utero, it would be absurd to read the statute to foreclose such claim when the fetus is so battered that he dies in the womb."

William Pryor, 54, Alabama

Judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2004; Tulane University Law School

KEY QUOTE: Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups, 2009, upholding requirement that voters show photo identification: "The insignificant burden imposed by the Georgia statute is outweighed by the interests in detecting and deterring voter fraud."

David Stras, 42, Minnesota

Associate justice, Minnesota Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, 2010; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; University of Kansas School of Law

KEY QUOTE: In re the Guardianship of Jeffers J. Tschumy, 2014, dissenting from a ruling, issued post-mortem, that a guardian can order the removal of a patient's feeding tube: "We are not a junior-varsity legislature. The parties ask us to decide a legal question that is completely disconnected from any case or controversy and to make a pure policy decision about how guardians should act in the future when making life-ending decisions."

Diane Sykes, 58, Wisconsin

Judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2004; Marquette University Law School

KEY QUOTE: Korte v Sebelius, 2013, permitting corporations whose leaders have religious objections to challenge the Affordable Care Act's mandate that health insurance plans cover contraceptives: "We hold that the plaintiffs — the business owners and their companies — may challenge the mandate. We further hold that compelling them to cover these services substantially burdens their religious exercise rights."

Don Willett, 50, Texas

Associate justice, Texas Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, 2005; Duke University School of Law

KEY QUOTE: Morath v. Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, 2016, upholding Texas' method of financing public education: "Our Byzantine school funding 'system' is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for improvement. But it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements. Accordingly, we decline to usurp legislative authority by issuing reform diktats from on high."

Keith Blackwell, 42, Georgia

Associate justice, Georgia Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal, 2012; University of Georgia School of Law

KEY QUOTE: Pyatt v. Georgia, 2016, upholding a murder conviction: “Pyatt was among a group that fired at least three handguns, one of which fatally wounded Rhodes. The state was not required to prove that Pyatt himself fired the fatal shot, so long as it proved that he was a party to the fatal shooting.”

Charles Canady, 62, Florida

Associate justice, Florida Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, 2008; Yale Law School

KEY QUOTE: Hurst v. Florida, 2016, dissenting from a decision requiring a unanimous jury to approve all findings that lead to a death sentence: "The only factual findings necessary to impose a sentence of death are findings regarding the elements of first-degree murder plus the existence of an aggravating circumstance."

Neal Gorsuch, 49, Colorado

Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2006; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy; Harvard Law School

KEY QUOTE: Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, 2016, blocking federal immigration rules that conflict with judicial precedent until they can be reviewed in court: "There’s an elephant in the room with us today.... Chevron and Brand X permit executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution."

Mike Lee, 45, Utah

U.S. senator

Elected in 2010, re-elected in 2016; Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School

KEY QUOTE: Senate co-sponsor of Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act: "In past decades, our criminal justice system was undermined by sentences that were too lenient. Too many violent felons were returning to the streets to do harm too soon. But now, decades later, some mandatory minimum sentences are too harsh."

Edward Mansfield, 60, Iowa

Associate justice, Iowa Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad, 2011; Yale Law School

KEY QUOTE: Nelson v. James H. Knight, DDS, 2013, denying a sex discrimination claim by a woman fired because of her employer's wife's jealousy: "Title VII and the Iowa Civil Rights Act are not general fairness laws, and an employer does not violate them by treating an employee unfairly so long as the employer does not engage in discrimination based upon the employee's protected status."

Federico Moreno, 64, Florida

Judge on U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida

Appointed by President George H.W. Bush, 1990; University of Miami School of Law

KEY QUOTE: Movimiento Democracia, Inc. v. Chertoff, 2006, ordering the federal government to accept 15 Cubans who reached an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys: "The historic bridge, which the state of Florida owns and pioneer Henry Flagler built to develop the tip of Florida, is indeed part of the United States despite its present lack of use. Therefore, the Coast Guard's decision to remove those Cuban refugees back to Cuba was not a reasonable interpretation of present executive policy."

Margaret Ryan, 52, Illinois

Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2006; Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Notre Dame Law School

KEY QUOTE: United States v. Wilcox, 2008, defending free speech rights of an Army paratrooper who distributed racial literature and attended a Ku Klux Klan rally: “Condemnation and conviction are drastically different when the First Amendment is involved, and our disagreement with his statements cannot substitute for the government’s failure to introduce evidence legally sufficient to meet the element of either service-discrediting behavior or prejudice to good order and discipline.”

Amul Thapar, 47, Kentucky

Judge on U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2007; University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law

KEY QUOTE: Wagner v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 2015, denying a store manager's employment discrimination claim that followed his loss of eyesight: "As a matter of law, driving was an essential function of Wagner's position. And because Wagner admits that he could not drive at all — accommodation or no accommodation — it follows that no reasonable jury could find that Wagner met his burden to show that he was 'qualified' for his position."

Timothy Tymkovich, 60, Colorado

Chief judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit

Appointed by President George W. Bush, 2003; University of Colorado Law School

KEY QUOTE: Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius, 2013, permitting corporations whose leaders have religious objections to challenge the Affordable Care Act's mandate that health insurance plans cover contraceptives: "Because the contraceptive-coverage requirement places substantial pressure on Hobby Lobby and Mardel to violate their sincere religious beliefs, their exercise of religion is substantially burdened."

Robert Young, 65, Michigan

Chief justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Appointed by Gov. John Engler, 1999; Harvard Law School

KEY QUOTE: In re Request for Advisory Opinion Regarding Constitutionality of 2005 PA 71, 2007, approving of the state's photo ID requirement for voters: "The photo identification requirement is a reasonable, nondiscriminatory restriction designed to preserve the purity of elections and to prevent abuses of the electoral franchise ... thereby ensuring that lawful voters not have their votes diluted."