Running a campaign mostly on his own adrenaline works for now — but come Primary Day, Weiner will have none of the field operation, either from unions and institutional support or a paid effort, that will make the difference in what’s expected to be a low turnout election. New York City primaries tend to turn in the final week between Labor Day and when polls open the following Tuesday. Even without seeing new naked pictures of him, veterans of New York elections assumed he’d never make it to that point as a leading candidate.

“He was high in a crowded field where an electorate was still not really focusing on the race. He had support that got him past the initial threshold of getting back in the race,” said Marist Poll director Lee Miringoff. “On the one hand, he had numbers which made his candidacy something that caught notice from his opponents. On the other hand, he was far from on his way to taking the oath of office. We were talking at best the second inning.”

Weiner was always going to struggle to get one of the two spots in the all-but-certain Oct. 1 runoff that will be triggered if no candidate gets 40 percent in the Sept. 10 primary. If he does, just about every political interest in New York that’s been split between his opponents is going to coalesce behind the other candidate. And if somehow he does land the nomination, he’d probably be easy pickings for one of the well-funded Republicans looking to pick up their party’s sixth straight mayoral win.