U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy has been hospitalized after experiencing a stroke, and is "awake and alert," his office said Sunday afternoon.
The 53-year-old Connecticut Democrat was transferred to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for monitoring after being taken to an area hospital, Murphy's office said.
He's responding well to treatment, according to his office.
Murphy experienced numbness in his arm on Saturday afternoon while attending his son's hockey game, his office said in a statement.
"The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery," Allison Herwitt, chief of staff for Murphy, said in a statement.
Murphy, who is not on Tuesday’s ballot but has been mentioned as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has been campaigning the past several weeks in Connecticut and a handful of swing states on behalf of Democratic candidates competing in the midterm elections. He was supposed to be in New Hampshire on Sunday to campaign with U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, who’s running for Senate.
Murphy was knocking on doors in Connecticut on Friday as he campaigned for Gov. Ned Lamont, who's up for re-election.
"There is no stronger advocate for our democracy, and no one who fights harder for the people of this state," Lamont said in a statement Sunday afternoon. "I am sure that he will be walking across the state again very soon, and we will all be cheering him on.”
The other member of Connecticut's Senate delegation, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, said he was thinking of his "great friend and colleague."
“I know how fiercely he fights and I’m certain I’ll be welcoming him back to the Senate soon,” Blumenthal said.
Murphy is among various Congress members to have experienced health issues in recent years.
Other Senate Democrats have had strokes in recent years, including Sens. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who had strokes in 2022 and have since recovered. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman had a stroke while campaigning for his seat that same year and now uses adaptive technology in the Senate, including live captioning on a phone or tablet that transcribes words as people speak to him and helps him process the conversation.
Fetterman said on social media Sunday that his family “is rooting for Chris and his family for a full and speedy recovery.”
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, 84, returned to the Senate in September for the first time in three months after he was hospitalized for a June fall in his home.
Murphy was first elected to the Senate in 2012 after serving Connecticut's 5th Congressional District. Before he was elected to Congress, he served in the Connecticut Senate and House of Representatives.
Connecticut Public/Connecticut Mirror's Lisa Hagen and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
