WASHINGTON — Democrats might want to think twice before declaring that Hillary Clinton is the “inevitable” presidential nominee in 2016 if they hope to retain the White House, according to one of their own.

“I think the narrative that it’s inevitable is off-putting to regular voters,” outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

“The American people want, and ought to want, their candidates . . . to actually make a case for why they’re the right person at the right time,” the governor added.

Patrick said voters view “inevitability as entitlement.”

President Obama, despite beating Clinton for the Democratic nod in 2008, has already taken steps to set the table for her possible 2016 nomination — including granting glowing side-by-side “60 Minutes” interviews in early 2013 when she left her job as his secretary of state.

Patrick also took a shot at his own party, which got trounced in the November elections, saying when Democrats “grow a backbone and stand up for what it is we believe, we win.”

The Chicago native said too many Democrats ran away from Obama, and he disputed an assertion by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) that Democrats blew it by focusing too much on ObamaCare.

Meanwhile, Democratic consultant Doug Schoen predicted Sunday that Clinton “will make a run for it” but said that she may lack that “new-car smell.”

“The real question is how does she separate herself from Obama, yet not get so far away from him that . . . she doesn’t alienate his base constituents?” he said in a radio interview with John Catsimatidis on WNYM/AM 970.

“The president said [last week] that the next president needs a new-car smell, and it’s pretty hard for me to say . . . that she has a new-car smell,” Schoen acknowledged.

Clinton’s favorability/unfavorability ratio was down to 50 percent to 45 percent in the latest Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday, well below her mark of 56 percent to 36 percent when she first quit as secretary of state.

But despite the ratings, in hypothetical match-ups against seven potential GOP presidential candidates, only Mitt Romney beats Clinton.

She trails Romney, 45 percent to 44 percent, but bests Chris Christie, 43-42; Paul Ryan, 46-42, and Ted Cruz, 48-37. She also beats Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee, all by 46 to 41 percent.