(CNN) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg doesn't anticipate that fellow candidate and 2016 alum Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will garner the necessary coalition of Democratic voters to win in 2020, in an interview with The New York Times.

"People were refreshed by the novelty of that boldness" of Sanders' far-left policies in 2016, Buttigieg said in the interview, published on Wednesday.

The South Bend, Indiana, mayor then cast doubt on the 77-year-old democratic socialist's ability to win the 2020 general election.

"I have a hard time seeing the coalition ultimately coming together there," Buttigieg told the Times.

Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told the Times in response to the criticism that the senator's "unifying progressive agenda" makes him "the best-positioned candidate to defeat Donald Trump in the general election."

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