Press in Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan and Russia reads Cooper's victory in North Carolina as the Democrats' first seat gain

The news agency AP projects Democrat Roy Cooper as the winner of the Senate election in North Carolina at 2:23 CET. The seat was previously in Republican hands. Media in several countries put the same point first: it is the first Senate seat the Democrats take from the Republicans this night. They differ in tone. It is a projection, not an official final result.

Germany: an important success. A dpa report at the Tagesspiegel (as of 2:40 CET) calls the seat “an important success” for the Democrats. It describes Republican Michael Whatley as a close confidant of Trump who backed his refuted fraud claim about the 2020 election.

Spain: the first flipped seat. The live blog of elDiario.es (Andrés Gil, 2:33 CET) writes that Cooper takes the first Senate seat from the Republicans. The Democrats had not had a senator from North Carolina since 2008.

Saudi Arabia: a reckoning with Trump. Arab News carries an AFP report at 3:13 CET whose headline speaks of a “stinging reckoning” for Trump. As reasons it cites anger over the cost of living, Trump's trade dispute and the war against Iran. Up to then, Trump had only spoken out with angry posts against Fox News coverage.

Mexico: caution. Excélsior (Oswaldo Rojas, 2:43 CET) writes in the conditional that Cooper has probably won the seat. The newspaper stresses that these are preliminary results with the count only just begun.

South Korea and Japan: brief reports. The agency News1 (Yoon Da-jeong, 2:43 CET) reports that Cooper wins the seat back. A second News1 report (Jeong Eun-ji, 2:42 CET) puts Republican voices first, saying it will be a tough night. The Japanese edition of AFP, AFPBB (2:47 CET), reports factually and recalls that the incumbent Thom Tillis became known for sharp criticism of Trump.

Russia: state media neutral in the text, Vance in the headline. The state agency RIA Novosti (Irina Pyatina, 2:50 CET) reports the result without comment and cites a projection by Fox News. The state agency TASS (Diana Dyakova, 2:56 CET) highlights in its headline a looming defeat of “Vance confidant” Jon Husted in Ohio. There, according to TASS citing the New York Times, only 15 percent of the ballots had been counted, and there was no projection.

Chinese state media had not noticeably commented on the result by about 3:15 CET. No statements by governments of other countries on the results had been found by then. These are the media's accounts and assessments. The tally is under Senate, the state of the night under election night.