Eight years ago, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, JD Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump.

Publicly, he called the Republican businessman an ¡°idiot¡± and said he was ¡°reprehensible.¡± Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler.

But by the time the former president tapped Vance to be his running mate in July, the Ohio native had become one of Trump¡¯s most ardent defenders. With Trump¡¯s decisive win in Tuesday¡¯s presidential election, Vance, 40, also became the heir apparent to Trump¡¯s re-energized Make America Great Again movement.