Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut was discharged Friday from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and headed to a rehabilitation center for several weeks of stroke recovery. That keeps the Democrat off the Senate floor when lawmakers return Monday for a lame-duck session.
Murphy, 53, said doctors found a small bleed in the thalamus region of his brain. Dr. Jose Suarez, who leads neurosciences critical care at Johns Hopkins, called it a small hemorrhagic stroke and said that, at Murphy's current pace of improvement, he expects a full recovery once rehabilitation is complete.
The senator said he sensed something was wrong with his body on the afternoon of Oct. 31 and dialed 911 as a precaution. His chief of staff, Allison Herwitt, said the next day that he had felt numbness in his arm at his son's hockey game, was taken to a local hospital where the stroke was found, and was then moved to Johns Hopkins. What caused the stroke has not been disclosed.
Murphy said he is keeping in touch with aides and fellow senators remotely, and that his staff is still handling constituent services and his legislative agenda while he is away.
The stroke struck three days before an election in which Democrats won control of both the House and Senate, with new majorities taking over in January. Murphy was not on the ballot but had stumped for candidates nationwide, most recently in Michigan, Minnesota and Florida, and was due in New Hampshire that Sunday with Rep. Chris Pappas, who went on to win a Senate seat. Murphy spent Election Day in the hospital after voting early.
Democratic officials pointed to his absence in the days after the vote and credited his campaigning and fundraising with helping the party's gains. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told an election-night crowd in Hartford that he looked forward to welcoming Murphy back.
Murphy serves as deputy secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus, a post that could shift once his party takes the majority. He holds seats on several committees, including Appropriations and Foreign Relations, is a prominent Democratic voice on guns and immigration, and is widely mentioned as a possible 2028 presidential candidate or future Senate leader.
He joins three other Democratic senators who have had strokes in recent years. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico returned to full-time work about five weeks after his in January 2022, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland spent about a week hospitalized that same year, and Pennsylvania's John Fetterman, stricken while campaigning in 2022, now relies on live captioning technology in the Senate.
