Martin O’Malley has checked enough boxes as a prominent Democrat—big city mayor, mostly successful governor, chairman of the Democratic Governor’s Association—that he probably didn’t expect to be trailing in presidential polls to a Vermont senator who serves as an independent and identifies as a democratic socialist. But for now he does trail, and pretty badly. O’Malley is more dependably liberal than Hillary Clinton has been, but the emergence of a crusading progressive like Bernie Sanders has convinced some analysts that O’Malley miscalculated, and let Sanders steal his thunder.

“Late to the dance,” as one strategist told The Hill, and presumably he’s pissed off about it. You might suppose that O’Malley harbors frustration not just with Hillary Clinton, for the immensity of her lead, but also with Sanders, who, if the field stays narrow, will skim support from left-wing Democrats that might otherwise back him in a one-on-one matchup between Democratic establishmentarians.

But if that’s true, which it may not be, it’s because O’Malley has fundamentally misread the status quo in Democratic politics, and imagines a potential parallel between the 2008 and 2016 elections that doesn’t exist at the moment.

If this election cycle were anything like the one that vaulted Barack Obama to the Democratic nomination O’Malley wouldn’t be polling at less than two percent. The former Maryland governor, who is expected to announce his candidacy on Saturday, is at least as credentialed to be president as anyone who ran in that field, or anyone in the Republican primary field that’s taking shape today. In a different milieu, he’d be harder to write off than, say, Ben Carson, who despite being an extreme and eccentric candidate has about four times as much support among Republican primary voters as O’Malley does among Democrats.

But in the current Democratic milieu—if RealClearPolitics’ poll averages are any indication—O’Malley looks dead in the water. Separating him and Clinton, who dominates today’s Democratic field with over 60 percent support, are Senator Elizabeth Warren, who commands 12.5 percent despite not being a candidate; Vice President Joe Biden, another non-candidate, with 9.8; Sanders, 7.4; former U.S. Senator Jim Webb, who is exploring a run, 2.6 percent; and, embarrassingly enough, former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who edges out O’Malley 1.5-1.2.