Senator Chris Murphy Hospitalized After Suffering a Stroke
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Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut suffered a stroke on Saturday and is being treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he is responding well to treatment, his office said Sunday.
Murphy, 53, began experiencing numbness in his arm while attending his son’s hockey game Saturday afternoon, according to a statement from his chief of staff, Allison Herwitt. He was taken to a local hospital, where doctors determined he had suffered a stroke, and was transferred to Johns Hopkins for monitoring.
“The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery,” Ms Herwitt said. The statement did not specify the severity of the stroke or when the senator might be discharged.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who suffered a stroke during his 2022 Senate campaign, said in a statement that he understood “all too well how much this impacts your life,” and that his family was rooting for Mr Murphy’s recovery.
The illness comes four days before the midterm elections, in which Mr Murphy had been a prominent campaigner. He had spent recent weeks travelling to bolster Democratic candidates in competitive races, including in Michigan and Florida. Connecticut Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz said she had been with him Friday evening, “where he was energetically encouraging voters to participate in the upcoming election,” and that she was glad to hear he was doing well.
First elected to Congress in 2006, Mr Murphy joined the Senate in 2012 and became one of its most prominent voices for gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut that same year. His outspoken opposition to President Donald Trump has led some observers to regard him as a possible presidential candidate in 2028, a prospect he has dismissed. “Anybody thinking about an election in 2028 or 2026 would be foolish,” he told the Guardian in 2025, arguing that Democrats should concentrate on “trying to save democracy.”
His office gave no timeline for his return to the Senate, which decides several races by the narrowest of margins. A full recovery, if confirmed, would leave no immediate vacancy in the chamber.