Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is taking a front-and-center role in the efforts to push Democrats toward becoming the party of economic populism and to challenge President Trump.

The Connecticut senator has emerged as one of the loudest and most prominent voices among party members looking to convince Democrats to change their focus around America’s working-class coalition, arguing they’ve lost trust with the voters they desperately need on their side.

Without an obvious leader to counter Trump's early return to power, Murphy is one of the figures seeking to fill that void as the party tries to rebuild from the ground up.

“He’s really interesting right now,” said Matt Duss, a former senior policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has worked with Murphy to co-sponsor legislation in the Senate. “He’s articulating a really powerful theory of the case about rebuilding an American political consensus. And he’s doing so in a unifying and constructive way.”

In the frantic first few months following Democrats’ electoral defeat, Murphy has seemed to do the impossible — gain an equal amount of praise from the two polarizing sides of his party. The lack of enemies has garnered attention as lawmakers, party leaders and campaign operatives start to work past their most glaring problems toward renewed relevance.

“For him to be joining this, I think is notable,” Duss said about Murphy’s anti-corruption message directed at his own party. The senator is “seen as part of the Democratic mainstream, not known as this radical,” he continued. “It’s a sign that the Democratic Party more broadly has lost its way.”

The 51-year-old senator has generally taken a supportive........

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