MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump has selected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, elevating a staunch ally and young GOP star who, less than a decade ago, rose to prominence as a Trump critic.

But over the last few years, Vance, 39, has emerged as a Trump loyalist, becoming one of his most vocal defenders in the Senate and a frequent surrogate on television as he called for the party to embrace Trump's populist agenda.

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In his selection, Trump is elevating Vance as an heir to the MAGA movement. He is also putting an enormous amount of trust in the freshman senator, just days after an apparent assassination attempt on the former president served as a grim reminder of the significance of the vice president in any administration.

The author of "Hillbilly Elegy," a 2016 memoir-turned-movie about growing up poor in Appalachia, Vance during the 2016 presidential race served as an anti-Trump conservative pundit. He compared GOP voters' newfound interest in Trump to a heroin addiction, privately speculated about whether Trump was "America's Hitler," referred to himself as a "Never Trump guy" and to Trump as "an idiot," and declared after the 2016 election that he had not voted for Trump.