Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. He is “awake and alert,” his team said, after being hospitalized following a stroke on Saturday. The senator “began experiencing numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game,” Allison Herwitt, Murphy’s chief of staff, said in a statement Sunday. “He was taken to a local hospital, where it was discovered that he had suffered a stroke,” he added. “He was transferred to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring and is responding well to treatment. Doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake.” Murphy, 53, was elected to the House of Representatives in 2006 and the Senate in 2012. He is not running for re-election this year, but has toured the country on behalf of Democratic candidates running for elected office. The senator was scheduled to be in New Hampshire, campaigning alongside Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic Senate candidate there. Three other Senate Democrats have suffered strokes. in recent years Sens. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland suffered strokes in 2022 and have since recovered. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman suffered a stroke while campaigning for his seat that same year. He said on social media on Sunday that he was “supporting Chris and his family for a full and speedy recovery.” Several Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, also offered prayers for Murphy. President Donald Trump said he was “really surprised” to learn of Murphy’s stroke. “No one wants to have that,” he added. Murphy, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, said Thursday at an event in Washington for the Middle East Institute that Trump’s plan to possibly resume war with Iran after the midterm elections was “insane.” Earlier this fall, Murphy was one of more than a dozen lawmakers whose offices received letters containing suspicious substances.
