WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy was spotted at a Washington, DC, watering hole on a date with a progressive media mogul and strategist who’s boosted his efforts as a leading anti-Trump politician in Congress — just months after the Connecticut Democrat announced he and his wife were separating.
Murphy, 51, was caught “cuddling” with Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill in the District’s Bloomingdale neighborhood, a source told The Post, sharing a photo of the pair’s romantic rendezvous.
The source said Murphy wrapped his arm around McGowan’s shoulder at one point, and the two were “being cutesy” while scanning the menu together for rustic Italian fare.
The cozy outing took place the night before President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, which the senator sat out.
The Democratic lawmaker is apparently still married to his wife, Cathy Holahan, a lawyer based in Washington, as neither has filed for divorce in Connecticut or DC, per public court records. The couple announced they were parting ways last November.
A DC Dem insider told Semafor that McGowan is having a love affair with the senator — and shared a selfie of them on her private Instagram last week with the caption “not postponing joy.”
As of Monday morning, McGowan had deactivated her X account.
Murphy and his wife met at the University of Connecticut’s law school, married in 2007 and have two children together. They revealed their separation in an email first reported by the Hartford Courant after the 2024 election.
“After much reflection and discussion, we have decided to separate as a couple,” they wrote in a Nov. 15 missive to a close group of friends after 17 years of marriage.
“We do so with deep care and respect for each other, and with a focus on continuing to be friends and loving, collaborative parents to our boys whom we adore.
“This was a difficult decision, but we believe that it is right for us, and we are going to move onto this new path the right way,” they added. “We will continue to support each other personally and professionally. And we hope you all will stay connected with both of us.”
McGowan was until last year married to Michael Halle, a fellow Dem strategist and former senior adviser to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He also served on the presidential campaigns of Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The Courier founder and publisher filed for divorce in May 2023, citing “irreconcilable differences,” and the marriage was dissolved the following year in April, Rhode Island state court filings show.
A self-described “childless woman voter,” McGowan has used her personal platform and position for years at the digital outlet to promote Murphy, retweeting his TV appearances and touting his “pro-democracy” stances and policy priorities on gun control, immigration and foreign relations.
“Beyond original newsletters, podcasts + social video series, COURIER’s new national vertical will publish video opinion pieces from prominent pro-democracy leaders fighting for our rights and freedoms, like this call from U.S. Senator @ChrisMurphyCT to ban assault weapons in [America],” she reposted one of the outlet’s X messages in November 2023, two months after her final divorce proceeding hearing.
“Republicans wanted — demanded — border legislation. Democrats, led by @ChrisMurphyCT, negotiated a bipartisan deal,” stated another Feb. 7, 2024, X post by Courier featuring a video interviewing Murphy.
“Now, because of Trump’s hold over the GOP, the bill is dead. Here is Murphy on why you should never again believe Republicans when they talk about the border.”
Murphy has emerged as a leading voice of Democrats’ resistance to Trump, sounding the alarm in an interview with the New York Times last month that his party’s “political brand is fundamentally broken, the rule of law is disintegrating and a lot of people still don’t know what Trump’s actual agenda is.”
More recently, McGowan had been constantly reposting his X account’s videos as well as TV hits.
“Trump sides with dictators [because] it legitimizes his plan for America: A Russian-style kleptocracy where the rich steal from us to enrich themselves,” Murphy said in a post sharing a March interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash, which was retweeted by McGowan.
Critics of Courier — which was founded in 2019, is backed by Acronym and has since been acquired by McGowan’s latest venture, Good Information, Inc. — have charged that it’s a liberal dark money outfit “masquerading as a news outlet,” though the FEC unanimously dismissed a complaint claiming that.
At least one former Courier employee dished to NOTUS last March, however, that the purpose of the eight-newsroom outlet, positioned in several key swing states, “was to get persuadable voters engaged with unassuming content” on their social media feeds before linking out to “political persuasion content.”
The for-profit news organization — funded by the liberal billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman — is also one of several lefty pop-up groups that McGowan has founded since the first Trump administration.
In 2017, she co-founded Lockwood Strategy, a political campaign firm that helped Virginia Democrats retake the state legislature within two years. Digital ads rolled out by Lockwood also helped clients such as Planned Parenthood and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
McGowan the same year also set up a political action committee, PACRONYM, which raised more than $18 million to oppose President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, per federal election campaign filings, and a left-wing 501(c)(4) called ACRONYM.
Both raked in millions from dark-money donors — with the latter becoming infamous as the primary investor of a glitchy app that botched vote results during the 2020 Democratic Iowa caucuses, delaying the tally for days, The Intercept previously reported.
Reps for Murphy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did McGowan, Halle or Holahan.
