Where Chris Christie cozied up to South Jersey’s all-powerful Democratic machine, cutting deals that made his early success possible, Phil Murphy has declared war on party boss George Norcross and those around him. | Getty Images New Jersey’s liberal governor takes on Democrats Christie embraced

TRENTON — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, used to berate hecklers on the boardwalk, faced off with furious union members at town hall meetings and hurled insults at Democratic enemies, using his tough-guy persona to become a global sensation before leaving office with a record-low approval.

His successor, Phil Murphy, a Democrat who has established little national profile since taking office last year, likes to avoid confrontation and portrays himself as a happy warrior who can get along with anyone, believing he can reason his way to success by getting the public on his side.


But it is Murphy — an Obama-era ambassador, former Democratic National Committee finance chair and now chair-elect of the Democratic Governors Association — who has caused the most problems for Democrats in New Jersey, where he has infuriated some of the party’s most influential members. It’s a dispute that could end Murphy’s political career, or cause a seismic shift in how things get done in Trenton.

Where Christie cozied up to South Jersey’s all-powerful Democratic machine, cutting deals that made his early success possible, Murphy has declared war on party boss George Norcross and those around him. Where Christie’s hands-off approach to some legislative races paved the way for Democrats to build an enormous majority in the Statehouse, some party members think Murphy is hoping GOP incumbents keep their seats this November to dilute Norcross’ influence — an accusation he denies.

The paradoxical approaches are both the result of the enormous sway Norcross, an insurance executive who has never held elected office, holds over politics in New Jersey. With control over most legislative votes from South Jersey and with Steve Sweeney, a childhood friend, in charge of the state Senate, Norcross and his allies have the ability to make or break any bill and block any gubernatorial nominee.

As Christie returns to the spotlight in New Jersey, launching an institute to put civility back in politics as he publicly bashes his replacement, Murphy finds himself in a protracted feud with Norcross, Sweeney and other Democrats. The fight is defining his time as governor and changing the paradigm in Trenton.

While he’s enacted low-hanging Democratic priorities, like a $15 minimum wage, Murphy is struggling to get his biggest campaign items — notably a millionaire’s tax and legal marijuana — past lawmakers. And he’s clashing with legislative leaders, and Norcross, over corporate tax incentives, perceived political slights and his more-liberal philosophies.

Christie decided to cut deals with those Democrats so he could muscle big bills though the Legislature. Murphy thinks he can curb their power, pushing right through the bloc, but has so far had little success in doing so.

Some observers say Murphy doesn’t know the rules Christie embraced. Others say the second-year governor wants to write his own rules.

“Christie is a master at transactional politics and working multiple people in order to get something accomplished,” said Matt Katz, the author of “American Governor: Chris Christie's Bridge to Redemption” and a former Christie beat reporter. “Murphy either doesn’t know how to play that game or has no interest in that kind of work.”

At the same point in his first term, Christie was working with some of those same lawmakers to push through property tax reforms and landmark pension and health benefits changes, while simultaneously badmouthing Democrats in press conferences and drawing the attention of GOP megadonors who wanted him to launch a bid for president.

Publicly, Christie used Democratic leaders in the state as punching bags for his made-for-TV antics, and they usually responded in kind. Privately, he embraced some of them, notably Sweeney, the Senate president whom he usually found willing to cut a back-room deal.

But Murphy, despite presenting himself as a diplomat — and actually being one in his last job as ambassador to Germany — has angered Democrats time and again for any number of reasons.

He is locked in an epic debate, now involving criminal investigations, related to the state’s multi-billion-dollar corporate subsidy programs, which expired in June.

He has irritated numerous county Democratic leaders with a fight over who should be the next state party chair, continuing to back an incumbent who’s been a boon for some of his surrogates and political advisers.

He used a labor-fueled dark money nonprofit to push a millionaire’s tax even as the state Assembly is up for reelection.

And he recently riled the usually subdued Assembly speaker, Craig Coughlin, by using that same nonprofit group to push for higher taxes on the wealthy and by asking voters to lobby lawmakers on a bill to give driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants — a no-go topic in a few competitive legislative districts.

Critics say they know exactly why Murphy would push the last issue: “Because he doesn’t want Democrats to pick up more seats,” one Statehouse Democrat said. Murphy, for the record, says he’s “optimistic” and believes “there are opportunities for our party to make some gains” in November.

Some think the governor’s inexperience with “the ways of Trenton” and with the art of “political maneuvering” has put him in this position, said Carl Golden, a top aide to former Republican governors Tom Kean and Christine Todd Whitman. If Murphy played things carefully, he could have been cutting deals like Christie did rather than fighting over every other issue, Golden said.

“I think they had this idea that a Legislature controlled by Democrats — by the Democratic party — that all they needed to do was walk down the hallway with their agenda and get it done,” he said.

When that didn’t happen, Golden said, “they didn’t seem to know what Plan B should be.”

Murphy’s aides and advisers say he does have a plan, say he’s accomplished plenty already and say they’re quite happy to take a different approach than Christie. Murphy’s focused on policy, they say, not backroom deal making, and that works just fine for him.

It’s working politically, too, they say. For example, Murphy’s fight for a millionaire’s tax, no matter how infeasible it will be to get through the Legislature, is important to his progressive base. It matters more that he be seen fighting publicly for that kind of policy than avoid upsetting other Democrats by doing, they say.

His unwillingness to work with Norcross, they say, is a defining characteristic.

“It would be a lot easier for Phil to get along with an unelected individual who has enormous sway over the Legislature — who literally controls the body itself,” said a person close to the governor, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak frankly about their approach. “But he doesn’t seem willing to do that at the expense of the things he believes and ran on.”

So far, he’s kept his base happy, with strong union backing and the ongoing blessing of progressives, while maintaining an approval rating of 45 percent.

“I think the governor owes it to the people of New Jersey not to do … things the way they’ve always been done,” said Sue Altman, state director of New Jersey Working Families, a leading progressive group. “I think the fact that Phil Murphy doesn’t know the Trenton secret insider handshake is to his credit.”

Murphy’s feud with South Jersey Democrats began before he was elected. First, he pushed Sweeney out of the primary, then did nothing publicly to stop the New Jersey Education Association — the state’s largest public-sector union and a major supporter — from spending millions of dollars to help a Republican candidate who ran unsuccessfully against Sweeney in his home district.

Since then, Sweeney has squabbled with the governor on a number of issues, most notably Murphy’s proposed millionaire‘s tax, and has built his own counter-agenda centered around cutting the cost of government in New Jersey.

But all of that was just a warm-up for this year, when Murphy appointed an aggressive task force to investigate the state’s tax incentives programs, going straight for Norcross’ wallet — and a Sweeney legacy item.

Several businesses Norcross is associated with won hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits through the programs, which his brother, Donald, now a congressman, sponsored and a lawyer who works with another brother, Phil, had a big role in crafting. A large percentage of the total tax credits went to companies with ties to the brothers, mostly in exchange for opening offices in Camden, the state’s poorest city.

Now Norcross is suing the governor, the task force has issued a scathing report alleging widespread abuses and there is said to be both a state grand jury investigation and a federal inquiry being run by the FBI and prosecutors in Pennsylvania.

Murphy’s attacks on the incentive programs have riled up local leaders in Camden, many of whom are allies of George Norcross and benefited from Christie’s interest in turning around the city. Some say Murphy is undermining the improvements of recent years.

Former Camden Mayor Dana Redd, who was also a state senator, said she’s been “very concerned” about the discussions around benefits that went to companies in Camden and thinks the governor may be giving the impression recent successes there are “a false start.” She said Murphy is “sending the wrong message.”

“Whatever the disconnect is between the governor and others, hopefully they’ll work it out,” she said. “But Camden should not be a casualty.”

The tax incentive issue also brings things back to Christie, who signed the 2013 law and championed it as one the few ways to keep and attract businesses in the high-tax state. He also used it as one way to show he cared about urban centers, repeatedly pointing to job growth in Camden.

When Murphy started going after the program this year, Christie — now a lawyer, real estate investor and ABC News personality — took personal offense and showed up defending the initiative and bashing his successor.

“I think this is nothing more than a political charade by a governor who hasn’t had any real accomplishment,” he told reporters last month after the inaugural event of his new Christie Institute for Public Policy.