U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy wants angry New Hampshire Democrats to know he feels their pain about the shutdown surrender.
Even if he isn’t willing to talk about the Granite State senators who helped cause it.
Murphy, who voted 15 times to block federal funding and keep the federal government shut down, told a gathering of Merrimack County Democrats in Concord on Wednesday afternoon, “I know a lot of people are disappointed by the outcome this week. But we can keep this fight up. They’ve (Republicans) pledged to us to have a vote in December on stopping those premium increases from going into effect.”
Democratic activists have been in a rage since eight members of the Senate — including Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen — broke with their party to back a GOP bill to end the shutdown. Murphy echoed that anger, though he pointedly avoided mentioning the two New Hampshire Democrats. Instead, he focused on President Donald Trump.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy addresses a group of Merrimack County Democrats in Concord, N.H., on Nov. 12, 2025.
“We faced down a president who was making the shutdown worse, more inhumane and more cruel than it had to be as a way to weaponize our compassion,” Murphy said. “This is really hard when you are up against an enemy who delights in cruelty and who essentially uses the American people as hostages.”
But the audience wasn’t as forgiving of their fellow Democrats. Merrimack state Rep. Wendy Thomas asked if, given Hassan and Shaheen’s decision to cave on the shutdown, “maybe it’s time to throw the baby out (with the bathwater).”
Murphy deftly declined to criticize his Granite State colleagues. Instead, he praised New Hampshire as “the primary protectors of democracy.”
The 52-year-old Connecticut progressive, who is serving his third term in the Senate, said that, as in 2022 and 2024, Democrats will again campaign on a theme of “saving democracy” ahead of the 2026 midterms, though he admitted it didn’t work last year.
“Part of the reason that that message in 2024 about protecting our democracy didn’t resonate with a lot of people [was] because folks said, ‘Why would I want to protect this version of democracy?’” Murphy said.
Murphy is one of the more extreme voices in his party when it comes to rejecting bipartisanship.
“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 told Punchbowl News last week. And one reason he has yet to commit to a presidential run, he added, is because “I’m not sure that we’re going to have a free and fair election in 2028.”
Still, two stops in First-in-the-Nation New Hampshire is a sign the White House is on Murphy’s mind. He also participated in a Stand Up New Hampshire town hall with Politico’s Kelly Garrity at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics on Wednesday night.
In Concord, Murphy was introduced by embattled Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill (who is facing possible impeachment) and state Sen. Donovan Fenton (D-Keene). Fenton has emerged as a potential 2026 gubernatorial candidate.
Fenton told the crowd that he and the state Democratic Party are “fighting every single day to keep the First in the Nation primary.”
“We need to be doing everything we possibly can,” he added. “And you know, having a senator here shows that.”
New Hampshire GOP Chairman Jim MacEachern greeted Murphy’s arrival with a message mocking the Connecticut senator as a “future failed presidential candidate.”
“This is the same senator who called for riots to defend criminal illegal aliens and voted more than a dozen times to keep the government shut down while vulnerable families went hungry,” MacEachern added. “New Hampshire isn’t interested in importing Washington’s dysfunction.”
Murphy isn’t the only Senate Democrat (and potential POTUS candidate) in the Granite State this week. On Friday, New Jersey U.S. Sen. Cory Booker will attend a town hall event at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics before serving as the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner in Nashua.
At the NHIOP event, Murphy was asked specifically about New Hampshire keeping the First in the Nation primary. Rather than give a direct answer, he carefully navigated the political minefield.
“You guys take democracy more seriously here than almost every other place,” Murphy told the crowd, adding that “it would be a mistake for the DNC to take what you have built for granted.
“I do think that New Hampshire has carved out a pretty special role for yourselves.”
