As de Blasio touted his liberal record in Iowa and South Carolina in recent weeks, nearly three dozen former and current aides, consultants and allies who spoke to POLITICO panned the idea or doubted that the mayor would end up going through with a run for the Democratic nomination. Aside from the few people working on the nascent effort, only two said de Blasio should run.

Their reasoning: Some say the 2020 field, a dozen-strong and growing, leaves no room for de Blasio, who’s long struggled to fashion a national persona comparable to past leaders of the country’s largest city, like Rudy Giuliani or Mike Bloomberg. Many note that he has too many glaring, unresolved problems at home. Others say the never-truly-popular de Blasio, whom a top Hillary Clinton backer once called “insufferable,” lacks charisma.

A few skeptics in de Blasio’s orbit have gone public. “I believe Bill de Blasio has 100 percent the right message; I’m just not so sure he’s the right messenger,” the mayor’s former campaign and City Hall advisor, Rebecca Katz, said recently on a local politics podcast.