WASHINGTON – Sen. Chris Murphy was spotted on a date with a progressive media mogul and strategist who has bolstered his efforts as a leading anti-Trump politician in Congress, just months after the Connecticut Democrat announced his and his wife’s separation.
Murphy, 51, was caught “cuddling” with Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, which is located just one mile north of Capitol Hill in the district’s Bloomingdale neighborhood, according to a source who shared a photo of the couple’s romantic rendezvous.
According to the source, Murphy once wrapped his arm around McGowan’s shoulder, and the two were “being cutesy” while scanning the menu 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 did not attend.
According to public court records, the Democratic lawmaker is still married to his wife, Cathy Holahan, a Washington-based lawyer, and neither has filed for divorce in Connecticut or DC. Last November, the couple announced their split.
According to a DC Dem insider, McGowan is having a love affair with the senator, and she posted a selfie of the two on her private Instagram last week with the caption “not postponing joy.”
On Monday morning, McGowan deactivated her X account.
Murphy met his wife at the University of Connecticut Law School, married in 2007, and have two children together. They announced their separation in an email first reported by the Hartford Courant following the 2024 election.
“After much reflection and discussion, we have decided to separate as a couple,” they wrote in a Nov. 15 letter to a close group of friends, following 17 years of marriage.
“We do so with deep care and respect for one another, with the goal of remaining friends while also being 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 told me. “We will continue to support one another personally and professionally. And we hope you’ll stay in touch with both of us.”
Until last year, McGowan was married to Michael Halle, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He has also worked on the presidential campaigns of Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.
The Courier’s founder and publisher filed for divorce in May 2023, citing “irreconcilable differences,” and the marriage was dissolved the following year in April, according to Rhode Island state court records.
McGowan, a self-described “childless woman voter,” has long used her personal platform and position 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 desired—demanded—border legislation. Democrats, led by @ChrisMurphyCT, negotiated a bipartisan deal,” according to another Courier X post from February 7, 2024, which includes a video interview with Murphy.
“The bill is now dead due to Trump’s control of the Republican Party. Murphy explains why you should never again believe Republicans when they talk about the border.
Murphy has emerged as a leading voice in Democrats’ opposition to Trump, warning 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.”
“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 McGowan retweeted.
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 is a liberal dark money outfit “masquerading as a news outlet,” though the FEC unanimously dismissed a complaint alleging this.
Last March, at least one former Courier employee told NOTUS that the goal of the eight-newsroom outlet, which is located 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.”
McGowan has founded several lefty pop-up groups since the first Trump administration, including the for-profit news organization, which is funded by liberal billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman.
She co-founded Lockwood Strategy in 2017, a political campaign firm that assisted Virginia Democrats in regaining control of the state legislature within two years. Lockwood’s digital ads also helped clients like Planned Parenthood and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
McGowan also established PACRONYM, a political action committee that raised more than $18 million to oppose Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, as well as ACRONYM, a left-wing 501(c)(4).
Both received millions of dollars from dark-money donors, with the latter becoming infamous as the primary investor in a glitchy app that botched vote results during the 2020 Democratic Iowa caucuses, delaying the tally for days, according to the Intercept.
