Adding some reality show host flare to the announcement of his first Supreme Court pick, President Donald Trump is bringing the two finalists to Washington, D.C., today.

CNN reported that 49-year-old Judge Neil Gorsuch, considered the frontrunner, is already in D.C., as Trump will announce his choice during primetime tonight.

But 51-year-old Judge Thomas Hardiman from Pittsburgh is also en route.

Trump's aim is to tilt the bench to conservatives on abortion, gun control and other hot-button issues and fill the vacancy left by conservative stalwart, Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away in February 2016.

Currently the bench consists of four conservatives and four liberals.

Gorsuch, an appellate court judge, is a more traditional pick and is considered an ideological match to Scalia. He's also taken a broad view on religious freedom, which conservatives have championed in recent years.

Hardiman, also an appellate court judge, is a defender of gun rights, police powers and the rights of local governments to display the Ten Commandments.

Twitter accounts for @JusticeHardiman and @JutsiceGorsuch popped up today, with each promoting the livestream event at the White House.

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President Donald Trump, shown Monday with small business leaders, will announce Tuesday night the name of the jurist he will nominate for a vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat

The Supreme Court has been in a 4-4 deadlock on most issues since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016

Both 'Justice Gorsuch' and 'Justice Hardiman' got new Twitter handles today, which retweeted promotional material from the White House on tonight's announcement

Fifty-four year old Alabamian William Pryor has all but fallen off the radar in the nation's capital, but dark horses have emerged at the last minute before.

Gorsuch has a pure Ivy League background, having attended Columbia for undergrad and Harvard for law school.

He also clerked at the Supreme Court, assisting Justices Byron White and Anthony M. Kennedy, before taking a job at a D.C. law firm.

While he may share personal ties with Kennedy, Gorsuch's record is more similar to that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the man he would replace.

Gorsuch, who has been sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit since 2006, is a proponent of originalism, according to the Washington Post.

Judge Neil Gorsuch has the most traditional resume for a Supreme Court pick, having graduated from Columbia and Harvard and clerked at the Supreme Court in his youth

In a speech he gave last spring, he said he had tried to follow Scalia's path.

Judges, Gorsuch believed, should look to 'text, structure and history' to make decisions.

Their job is 'not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best,' he said.

Unlike Pryor, Gorsuch hasn't ruled in an abortion case.

He has sided with Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor in opinions that are in line with the Supreme Court's conservative justices.

The phrasing that he used in a ruling on behalf of those who challenged Obamacare's birth control mandate suggest he's pro-life, as he said businesses would be forced to 'underwrite payments for drugs or devices that can have the effect of destroying a fertilized human egg.'

Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, might be a better bet.

When Bush appointed him to the position in 2003, the Senate vote was 95 to 0.

Judge Thomas Hardiman is on the short list for the Supreme Court, with his Third Circuit colleague, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry - the president's sister - encouraging this pick

Hardiman is getting a push from Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, the president's sister, who also serves on the Third Circuit.

'He's probably the most conservative judge that can get confirmed,' a source within the Trump administration, familiar with the SCOTUS deliberations, told the Washington Examiner.

The Pittsburgh-based Hardiman has a compelling backstory.

He was the first member of his family to go to college, growing up in Waltham, Massachusetts and coming from working class roots.

He sometimes worked as a taxi driver to pay for degrees at Notre Dame and Georgetown University Law Center.

He also speaks fluent Spanish and volunteered at the Ayuda immigration legal aid office in Washington, D.C.

Hardiman's considered a good fit for Trump because he's come out strongly for the Second Amendment.

He dissented when the 3rd Circuit heard a gun case in 2013, which said it was constitutional for the state to require individuals to demonstrate 'justifiable need,' before granting them a permit to carry a handgun in public.

Hardiman said the law violated the Second Amendment and argued that the Second Amendment 'extends beyond the home,' The Washington Post reported.

The 'very big decision,' is to be announced at 8:00 pm from the White House, Trump told reporters. The candidate is 'unbelievably highly respected', he said.

The Supreme Court pick, during prime television viewing, sets the stage for a bruising battle with opposition Democrats.

Democrats, who are in a minority in both chambers of Congress, are still smarting from the Republicans' refusal to consider – much less vote on – former president Barack Obama's nominee for the same Supreme Court seat.

And although Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate, they need 60 to confirm a nominee.

Trump's choice, then, must be someone capable of winning some Democratic votes – unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decides to invoke the so-called 'nuclear option' and unilaterally lower the bar to a 51-vote simple majority.

The Democratic minority, observers agree, would go berzerk.

Abortion, gay marriage and gun control are just some of the controversial issues on which the Supreme Court is the final arbiter. Its members are confirmed by the Senate and serve life terms.

Given the advanced age of several sitting justices, Trump could potentially make several appointments during his term, shaping the court's direction for a generation.

Once confirmed, however, justices enjoy independence and some have proved politically unpredictable.

Chief Justice John Roberts was expected to be a rock-ribbed conservative when President George W. Bush put him on the high court.

He later green-lighted the divisive Obamacare system in two tie-breaking votes.

The president said he wanted a candidate who opposes abortion and firmly backs the right to own guns.

In a presidential debate in October, Trump said his Supreme Court picks would 'automatically' lead to overturning Roe v. Wade, the emblematic 1973 ruling that legalized abortion.

Trump had said he would announce his pick on Thursday, but then moved the date up amid a raging controversy over his order to temporarily bar refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the country.

Four federal judges issued temporary orders blocking deportations of people detained at U.S. airports, embroiling the fledgling administration in its first major legal challenges. Advocates vow to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to fight 'tooth and nail' if Trump nominates someone unacceptable to Democrats.

'That just shows you that it's all about politics, it's not about qualification,' White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.

'The president has a right to have his nominees taken up.'

But Spicer did not mention that Obama had chosen Merrick Garland, a politically moderate appellate court judge, to win over Republicans, but they refused to even consider him.

Garland has since returned to his old job as chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said on Monday that he planned to procedurally block any Supreme Court pick that isn't Garland and he expected his Democratic colleagues to do the same.

'This is a stolen seat. This is the first time a Senate majority has stolen a seat,' Merkley said. 'We will use every lever in our power to stop this.'