Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, was hospitalized on Saturday after doctors diagnosed a stroke, his office said in a statement on Sunday, November 1 — two days before voters go to the polls in the midterm elections he had spent recent weeks campaigning in.
Murphy, 53, first felt numbness in an arm on Saturday afternoon while watching his son play hockey, according to Allison Herwitt, his chief of staff. He was taken to a local hospital, where the stroke was identified, and was later moved to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring.
"Awake and alert"
Herwitt's statement struck an optimistic note about the senator's condition: "The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery."
Neither the senator's office nor the hospital has said how long he is expected to remain under care, or when he might return to Washington. The Senate is not in session for voting on Election Day, and no date has been given for his first vote after the recess.
A senator in the middle of a campaign
Murphy has represented Connecticut in the Senate since 2013, after three years in the House of Representatives. He has become one of the party's most visible voices on gun legislation and on foreign policy, and is routinely named among the Democrats who could run for president in 2028.
In the weeks before the stroke he had been travelling to campaign for Democratic candidates ahead of Tuesday's vote. Governor Ned Lamont said he had been with Murphy two days earlier encouraging voters, and expects him back on the campaign trail soon.
The reaction from Connecticut officials came quickly. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Murphy's colleague in the state's two-seat delegation, said he was "certain I'll be welcoming him back to the Senate soon." Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz, Attorney General William Tong and Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam all sent wishes for his recovery, as did Republican state senators Ryan Fazio and Stephen Harding.
Murphy is not on the ballot on Tuesday. He was re-elected in 2024 to a term that runs to January 2031, so his absence does not change the arithmetic of the vote itself — only the chamber he returns to, whose composition Tuesday's results will decide.
Reporting from CBS News and NBC Connecticut.
