Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) spent much of President Joe Biden’s tenure trying to cut deals with Republicans. Gun control. Changes to the Electoral Count Act. Immigration reform. Ukraine funding.
But that was a different Chris Murphy.
Now Murphy has all but stopped raising money for his own political efforts, instead funneling seven figures into “protest organizations all around the country.” The third-term senator says the “core” of his job “is different right now.”
“I think the Republican Party has signed up to destroy our democracy, and I think the primary job of any United States senator is to mobilize Americans to protect our democracy,” Murphy said on Fly Out Day. “I don’t see them right now as good faith partners to create bipartisan legislation that protects the people I represent.”
The question for Murphy is one we ask all the time about ambitious young pols: what does he want?
The 52-year-old has been in Congress for 19 years. He’s unlikely to be the next Senate Democratic leader; Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) looks to be in the pole position there.
Murphy, though, is making the moves a pol would make if they want to run for president. Murphy was in Miami earlier this week to talk about Obamacare premiums. He’s heading to New Hampshire next week for an event with state Democrats. He toured the country with Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost.
“I’m certainly not planning on it right now, because I’m not sure that we’re going to have a free and fair election in 2028,” Murphy said when asked if he was running for president. “So for me, the project is save the democracy, and then — if democracy is still alive and well in 2028 — then everybody’s gonna have a decision to make.”
For now, Murphy has emerged as one of the most prominent progressives in the Trump era and his view on the shutdown is carrying the day inside the Senate Democratic Caucus.
The election. Murphy sees Tuesday night’s election results — wins in New Jersey and Virginia — as watershed moments for Democrats.
The Connecticut Democrat said the Democratic romp was, put simply, “a referendum on Trump.”
“There’s just no mistaking it’s a referendum on Trump. He has over-stepped. Costs are hurting folks. They think his immigration raids are inhumane. They are definitely worried about the level of corruption. Democracy was on the ballot. Okay, that’s probably the main story, but I do think there’s a secondary story, which is that the Democratic Party looks powerful for the first time all year.”
Murphy chalked up the huge Democratic turnout to for the “first time, they’re seeing a party fight.”
The shutdown. We sat down with Murphy just before the key Senate Democratic meeting on whether to end the shutdown or cut a deal with Republicans.
Murphy’s view — that the party should keep fighting — won the day. Here’s how Murphy described his thinking:
“The 2026 election is just 12 months away. And if we surrender without having gotten anything, and we cause a lot of folks in this country who had started to believe in the Democratic Party to retreat again, I worry that it will be hard to sort of get them back up off the mat in time for next fall’s election.”
You can watch the full conversation here.
