Phil Murphy learned last year that his 13-point victory at the polls didn't translate into leverage in the Statehouse.

The Murphy charm offensive — the endless shout-outs and relentless grin — simply could not move the members of his own party to back his aggressive tax hike agenda.

Murphy left town last June stung by the reality that the powerful Democratic leaders of the Legislature did not share his appetite for nearly $1.6 billion in tax hikes. They were not his fast friends. And, it turns out, he had few friends in the back bench of both houses that called themselves Phil Murphy Democrats.

But on Tuesday, Murphy, the ex-Goldman Sachs executive, showed that he learned from last year's lesson.

A former U.S. ambassador to Germany, Murphy crafted his second budget plan with diplomatic guile. Instead of believing that the lawmakers would fall in line behind their new progressive leader, the happy warrior who co-opted all those county party machines with his cash, Murphy was the humbled warrior, eager to make amends but without surrendering core priorities.

"He has a little more experience,'' quipped Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen.

Lawmakers, including Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, who has loomed as Murphy's most ardent intra-party foe, applauded the chastened Murphy.

Murphy's new approach did not wipe away vast differences, the kind that could potentially bring the state to a shutdown like last year. The centerpiece of Murphy's budget, for example, is a tax increase on millionaires, which is anticipated to bring in $447 million in revenue for fiscal year 2020.

Sweeney, a longtime champion of the tax increase until last year, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, remain opposed to the hike — although, surprisingly, they didn't fully slam the door shut on the idea on Tuesday. And in a related move, Sweeney is expected to advance a plan to overhaul the pension and health benefits for recent and future state employees, the centerpiece of his "Path to Progress" platform that he has been championing since last year.

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The pension battle will certainly inflame public employee unions, which have been Murphy's staunchest allies. The new detente in Trenton could easily go up in smoke.

Yet clearly Murphy's tone and approach worked in temporarily disarming his rivals. Early in his 57-minute speech before the joint session of the Legislature, Murphy cast himself as a co-partner, instead of the top-down governor who expected the legislators to eventually bend to his will.

“I understand the budget I am proposing today will not be identical to the one I will ultimately sign. We will talk. We will negotiate and we will compromise," he said. "Negotiations and progress flow from mutual trust. They go nowhere when there is only mutual suspicion. That’s the old way. That’s the failed way. And those days are over."

Murphy also shrewdly packed his budget with funding for relatively small programs that have long been the personal priorities of legislators.

Last year, Murphy continued the practice of his Republican predecessor, Chris Christie, of cutting funds for housing, prisoner reentry and a program that guides people through the maze of the court system.

The funding cut proposal created months of anxiety for people who depend on the programs and the officials who run them. But this year, Murphy has included the funding in his initial plan, ending the scramble by lawmakers to restore the funding in the final rounds of budget negotiations in June.

"I think the governor deserves credit for having gone through the process for a year, understanding the Legislature and understanding the Legislature's needs," Coughlin said.

Murphy also shrewdly took steps to de-fang Sweeney by packing the budget with nearly $1 billion in savings, with almost $800 million expected from health care benefit savings negotiated with the Communications Workers of America, the state's largest public employee union.

Sweeney has insisted that he would never consider tax hikes until the steep savings could be wrung from government through cuts and consolidation — the core focus of his "Path to Progress." But Murphy's cuts seemed to validate Sweeney's argument that the savings can be found in the vast state bureaucracy.

"The governor has demonstrated today that there are reforms and there are savings,'' Sweeney said.

But whether this was enough to force Sweeney and Coughlin to relent on their opposition to a tax hike remains to be seen. Murphy allies argue that the tax on roughly 20,000 New Jersey millionaires is popular with a majority of average voters.

In fact, Murphy framed the tax hike as part of a plan to revive the New Jersey middle class by using the tax proceeds for schools, community college and infrastructure. In fact, Murphy called the budget a "blueprint for the middle class."

Coughlin, who will oversee the Assembly Democrats' campaign this fall, is wary of having any of his members be forced to defend any tax hikes in the fall campaign. And Sweeney is holding out to see whether he can leverage new employee benefit savings.

“We’ll talk about taxes when we think we get to the right place,'' Sweeney said. "But right now we think we’ve got more work to do.”

But Sweeney's tone also reflected a marked improvement. It was the tone of willingness to negotiate, not resist. And, at least for Murphy, that is a start.