When a Democrat is under-the-bus by the NY Times, you can assume he was already headed for room temperature and past his sell-by-date.
The article is not the thing to note, it is that the Times ran it giving full permission for the faithful leftists to abandon him.
I agree, the content isn’t the story here, the source is. If this were in the Compost it would be notable, but in the Slimes it is virtually unprecedented! Could thus be planted for CYA use after the midterms? If so their internal polling must see a tsunami coming.