Donald Trump did not wait for Glenn Youngkin's election victory to be officially announced.

On Tuesday evening, when the votes were still being counted after the Virginia gubernatorial election, the former president announced: Without him, the Republican would never have won.

He wanted to thank his base for voting for Youngkin in such large numbers.

Without his movement, which is stronger than ever before, the candidate would have had no chance.

He, Trump, didn't even have to appear at a rally because the Democrats hadn't talked about anything other than "Trump, Trump, Trump".

He generously concluded: "Glenn will be a great governor".

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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The Republicans shouldn't come as a surprise that the former president would claim the election victory. Just as few in the party would have been surprised if Trump had claimed in the event that Democrat Terry McAuliffe had won the election: Youngkin would now like to distance himself from him. It just continues to apply: I am the party. However, it is not as easy as Trump is making it.

Voters in Virginia gave the Republicans a huge electoral victory on Tuesday - and at the same time inflicted a bitter defeat on President Joe Biden.

A year after his victory over Trump, it represents a serious setback for his presidency.

There are many reasons for the election failure.

The fact that Washington plays a significant role in this can be seen from the fact that the Democrats got into difficult waters elsewhere in the regional elections.

However, the message for Trump is an ambivalent one: his base was mobilized by a candidate who had distanced himself from him.

And without this distancing, Youngkin was certain, he would not have been able to win over the independent voters in the political center.

McAuliffe could not mobilize enough

His election campaign has been closely watched in America because it was seen as a test of whether the division of the Republicans can at least be concealed. In a year's congressional elections, many of the party's candidates in alternate states will try to repeat this balancing act. “Midterms”, however, have a different character. Then it's about the majority in the Congress Chambers. Trump's appearances in the heartland of America will then have an echo in the moderate coastal states. It’s no longer easy to hide the former president in the coming year.

Youngkin's win must still be a wake-up call for the Democrats.

For the first time since 2009, Republicans were able to win a nationwide office in Virginia.

The Democrats had been able to win back the southern state, which was dominated by the republican after the dispute over civil rights legislation in the 1960s, in the past decade - not least because of the influx of urban voters to suburban Northern Virginia.

Biden had won the state's electorate a year ago by a margin of ten percentage points.

His victory was based in Virginia on an enormous mobilization of young and black voters, but above all white voters with university degrees, who could no longer stand Trump.