“The Federalist Society has been keen on finding nominees that have a profile like hers,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias, an expert on the judicial nomination process. Lawyers “who are fairly young, have strong credentials and who have a fairly fixed perspective on some of the issues that they would see in federal court and have actually litigated them.”

Anti-abortion advocates applauded the choice on Monday. “From what I have read on her qualifications she would be an excellent candidate,” Mary Maschmeier, founder and president of Defenders of the Unborn, said in an email. “Anyone who worked for (the) Thomas More Society has to be a good fit.”

But the nomination could prove polarizing in a state where threats to the survival of the sole remaining clinic that provides abortions brought protesters to the streets earlier this year.