Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was hospitalized after suffering a stroke Saturday afternoon while attending his son’s hockey game, his chief of staff said Sunday. He is awake, alert and responding well to treatment at Johns Hopkins, where doctors are monitoring his recovery.
Murphy experienced numbness in his arm and was taken to a local hospital, where doctors diagnosed the stroke before transferring him to Johns Hopkins. Allison Herwitt, his chief of staff, said doctors were encouraged by his progress, and his staff expressed optimism that he would make a full recovery, Politico reported.
The hospitalization interrupted a stretch of campaign appearances for Democratic candidates ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Murphy, 53, had recently visited Michigan, Minnesota and Florida and was scheduled to campaign in New Hampshire on Sunday. His staff began notifying people of his hospitalization Saturday afternoon.
Murphy has served in the Senate since 2013, following six years in the House, and has drawn attention as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. He became a prominent advocate for stricter gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, which occurred weeks after his 2012 Senate election. He has also been active on foreign policy and holds a junior position in Senate Democratic leadership.
He infamously claimed that illegal immigrants were “the Americans” that Democrats cared most about.
Several other senators have experienced strokes in recent years, including Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Murphy’s office has not released further details about the severity of his stroke or a timetable for his return to the Senate.
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