Andrew Cuomo should be riding high. As a two-term Democratic governor of one of America’s biggest states, he is considered one of the few clear frontrunners for his party’s 2020 nomination. Earlier this month, in fact, Politico published a profile that framed Cuomo—“a muscular, messy, rough-edged leader shouting for the common man,” in David Freedlander’s description—as the Democrat best positioned to beat President Donald Trump. Cuomo seems to agree. After making a great show of refusing to even entertain the idea of running for president, he has begun to staff up, raise money, and talk like a presidential candidate.

Yet Cuomo has also never been more vulnerable. In conversations with multiple Democratic officials in New York, the prevailing sentiment that has emerged is one of exasperation bordering on anger. He is widely criticized for presiding over the dysfunction in his own party and for working at odds with its interests. A crumbling New York City subway system has led to a virulent anti-Cuomo campaign on social media and falling poll numbers, while Cuomo himself has acknowledged that it will be a “summer of hell” for those commuting to the city from New Jersey and Long Island. Members of the state’s progressive base, inflamed by the election of Trump and frustrated with the party’s milquetoast response, have set their sights on taking Cuomo down.

The irony of Andrew Cuomo is that, just as the national spotlight has turned to him as a potential Democratic savior, Democrats in his own state, following years of pent-up frustration, are turning on him with a vengeance. And yet, as Cuomo prepares to run for re-election in 2018, no credible challenger has emerged from the left, a testament to how thoroughly Cuomo has turned the Democratic Party in New York into a vehicle for his own political ambitions.

The only scare Cuomo has experienced came from well outside the party. In the 2014 gubernatorial primary, Zephyr Teachout, an unknown university professor who ran to his left on education, the environment, and good governance, won a surprising 34 percent of the vote. The conditions for a progressive challenger have only improved since then, following Bernie Sanders’s strong grassroots challenge to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary.

The irony of Andrew Cuomo is that, just as the national spotlight has turned to him as a potential Democratic savior, Democrats in his own state are turning on him with a vengeance.

Cuomo’s supporters point to the absence of a progressive challenger as proof that the governor is more progressive than his critics would like to admit. During his seven years as governor he has raised the minimum wage, introduced a free college program, passed gun control legislation, raised the age of criminal responsibility, legalized same-sex marriage, and banned fracking. “It would be the height of stupidity to go after him for not being progressive enough,” Ken Sunshine, the head of the public relations firm Sunshine Sachs, told the New Republic. “I defy anybody to cite a better progressive record as chief executive than he has. From the toughest gun law in the country—which was very difficult to do—to gay marriage, to a host of social programs, what are they going to campaign for? He’s not warm and fuzzy to a few people who have made a career of criticizing him?”