The lead water crisis affecting some 18,000 Newark homes looms as a political crisis for Gov. Phil Murphy.

As a candidate and shortly after sweeping into power, Murphy raised hopes of being the first governor in a long time who would confront long-festering problem of lead poisoning. He even raised the issue in his inaugural address.

But in reality, the lead water crisis — which should return to the spotlight Monday when new water testing results from more than 200 Newark homes are disclosed — has proved to be another one of those messy, chronic issues that Murphy has come to realize are easy to champion as a candidate but difficult to resolve as governor.

To be sure, Murphy, as well as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, breathed a sigh of relief earlier this month when Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. swooped in as a savior with a $120 million bailout for aggrieved Newark homeowners.

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The proposed money will target the long-term and costly culprit: the water lines that connect the water main to individual homes in the city's South and West ward homes. The county will issue bonds to cover the cost of replacing those lines.

DiVincenzo's action effectively took both Murphy and Baraka off the hook.

It relieves Murphy of some of the burden of state responsibility, at least for now, to resolve the crisis.

The fact is that Murphy lacks the resources and the political clout in Trenton to push through a similar bailout through a fractured Legislature. And he is already bogged down by other thorny issues that offer little glimpse of resolution in the near future.

They include the upgrading of delay-plagued NJ Transit, the restructuring of the Schools Development Authority, which was rocked by scandal and has run out of funding, and the retooling of the Economic Development Authority, which has come under fire for rubber-stamping generous tax breaks for corporations. Legal marijuana is nowhere in sight.

Murphy has made little headway on those issues. Being held fully responsible for resolving Newark's water woes would only serve as another political and bureaucratic quagmire.

Yet instead of keeping his distance, Murphy has been its visible crisis manager since high lead levels in two of three Newark homes prompted the federal Environmental Protection Agency the city to distribute bottled water on Aug. 9.

Murphy immediately gave cover to the embattled Baraka, declaring the response swift and coordinated.

"I have to say, we have worked seamlessly together. There has been no daylight between us," Murphy said this month. "I can’t say enough good things about the mayor’s leadership.''

Several motives may explain Murphy's joined-at-the-hip approach. He needed to get in front of a crisis that threatened to morph into a sequel of the Flint, Michigan, lead water scandal in 2014. The outcry over that city's lead-tainted water became a national disgrace and a symbol of bureaucratic and political malfeasance and indifference.

In addition, Murphy's administration could not claim ignorance of Newark problems: State environmental protection officials had been notified of high lead levels in city homes in routine reports over the past two years.

And then there is Murphy's relationship with Baraka. At a time when Murphy has struggled to maintain political support from party leadership, Baraka has been a reliable ally. The governor can't afford to lose him. Baraka's endorsement of Murphy helped him seal the Democratic Party nomination in 2017.

Yet Murphy's high-profile association with the water crisis has proved to be a drag on his standing with voters. Just 10% of those polled approved of Murphy's handling of the crisis, while 28% disapproved. But the poll also noted that 41% had no opinion of the matter and 21% knew nothing about the issue.

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But more telling is the response from residents who live closest to Newark and are most aware of the problem. Only 12% of residents in Essex and Hudson counties approved of Murphy's handling and 44% disapproved, with 29% offering no opinion.

Those numbers in what is the center of Democratic support — Essex County is home to one in seven registered Democrats — hint at the political perils for Murphy. Serving as a front man for the crisis only fuses in the minds of voters that this is his crisis, even though DiVincenzo came to the rescue with the $120 million check.

"If things get fixed, the end result for Murphy is anywhere from a net positive to no impact,'' said Patrick Murray, the Monmouth pollster. "If it doesn't get fixed, it almost certainly going to be partially his fault, at the very least. He's the governor, it's the largest city in the state, and while he may not be responsible for the problem developing, its now on his plate to fix the problem."

The Newark crisis will also inevitably steer focus to the lead water problems in other New Jersey cities and older suburbs.

Pressure will build on Murphy and legislators to confront that challenge, which was detailed in a joint legislative panel in 2018. The cost of uprooting and replacing pipes could run into the billions — an untenable price tag for a state already swimming in bonded debt.

Even before the crisis exploded last month, Murphy had heightened expectations, vowing in a candidate questionnaire to "update our state’s water supply plan, which hasn’t been updated since 1996, so investments in water infrastructure can be targeted appropriately."

That determination was also expressed in his inauguration speech: He declared that a "stronger and fairer New Jersey" includes "housing that is affordable and safe from the danger of lead."

It's an ambitious promise, and one that Murphy will have a hard time keeping.