Sen. Chris Murphy hospitalized after stroke

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. is “awake and alert,” his team said, after being hospitalized following a stroke on Saturday.

The senator “started experiencing numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game,” Allison Herwitt, Murphy’s chief of staff, said in a statement on Sunday.

“He was taken to a local hospital, where it was discovered he had experienced a stroke,” she added.

“He was transferred to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring and is responding well to treatment. The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery.”

Murphy, 53, was elected to the House in 2006 and to the Senate in 2012.

He is not up for re-election this year but has traversed the country on behalf of Democratic candidates running for elected office.

The senator was slated to be in New Hampshire, campaigning alongside Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic nominee for Senate there.

Three other Senate Democrats have had strokes in recent years.

Sens. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland had strokes in 2022 and have since recovered.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman had a stroke while campaigning for his seat that same year. He said on social media Sunday that he was “rooting for 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 about Murphy’s stroke. “Nobody 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 the war with Iran after the midterms “insane.”

Earlier this fall, Murphy was one of over a dozen lawmakers whose offices received letters containing suspicious substances.