DES MOINES — The House of Representatives had just passed its sweeping overhaul of the federal tax code, and Mayor Bill de Blasio unfurled his long arms in a windowless Iowa conference room to express his displeasure at what he said was a "bad day for the country."
"Now," he said, "comes the work of dealing with it."
The bill will deeply affect New York City, but on Tuesday Mr. de Blasio was a time zone away, talking up his two-pronged plan to remake the Democratic Party and then retake Congress in 2018. Buoyed by his own re-election last month — he volunteered his winning percentage multiple times in a 30-minute interview here — the mayor said he sees himself as proof positive that his "brand" of "progressive economic populism" sells.
"I think that gives me license to say, 'Hey guys, I want to give you a good example,'" he said. "I don't pretend to be the arbiter of all truth, but I think I have something to contribute. And I think people are listening."
So Mr. de Blasio flew to Iowa this week, tucking his nearly 6-foot-6 frame into a pair of coach seats (he had a layover) to visit the state that kicks off the presidential nominating contest. Coming here guaranteed that Mr. de Blasio would get the 2020 question — no, he says, he is not running — even as he feigned frustration that it's been asked and answered. Some passengers recognized him and could be overheard discussing his itinerary. "Big ambitions?" one person said. "Yup," said another.
If the idea of Mr. de Blasio-to-Iowa rings familiar, that's because it is. He did much the same in 2015, to notable failure. He tried to get Democrats to adopt his "progressive agenda," launched a nonprofit group and promised a presidential forum. All three fizzled. He then stalled for months before endorsing his former boss, Hillary Clinton, and when he finally did, her campaign buried his blessing among an avalanche of other mayoral backers.
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Now he is again unapologetically opening his political aperture far beyond New York City, even before his second-term swearing-in. His 28-hour jaunt to Iowa, he said, is just the first stop. Why here and now?
"Because it has to be built all the time. It doesn't stop. It's not linear," Mr. de Blasio said of his efforts to shift the Democratic Party to the left. "I mean, don't get too Western on me, man. It's not linear thinking. This is long-term movement building. This is long-term social change."
Mr. de Blasio is not particularly introspective about his past failures. "I had a good concept and didn't figure out how to actualize it consistently enough," he said, adding that Senator Bernie Sanders "came out of nowhere" and accomplished many of Mr. de Blasio's initial goals. The mayor is also dismissive of any criticism that his attention is divided, mockingly popping gum into his mouth and walking out of a room full of reporters to demonstrate his multitasking skills.
Even when in New York City, Mr. de Blasio has embraced national causes. He tweets daily about the expired federal children's health insurance program. And last month, the mayor stood in the streets outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to protest the tax bill.
"Are we going to fight?" Mr. de Blasio said at the rally. "Yes!" came the reply. "Say it loud enough that he can hear you!" the mayor urged. (Mr. Trump was not in New York at the time.)
The specific occasion for Mr. de Blasio's trip this week was a fund-raiser for Progress Iowa, a group that also hopes to pull the Democratic Party more toward progressivism. He gushed to the crowd of more than 150 liberal activists that it was "a very life-affirming evening."
While Mr. de Blasio can sometimes seem to trudge through the day-to-day of his mayoralty, carrying heavily with him the grievances of his media coverage, he visibly brightens when discussing national politics. He offered up in his speech a searing indictment of a listless Clinton campaign, although not by name. "The party came up with something that seemed, kind of, maybe, like a message," he told the crowd.
He has held up his own re-election as an example of success for an unrepentant progressive, though it is not clear how his brand of liberalism would sell in a less diverse place: A new poll this week showed white voters in New York disapproving of the mayor, 47 percent to 35 percent.
He bristled at that suggestion, saying, "I don't pray at the altar of any public poll," though a few hours later he touted Iowa public polls that favored Democrats, to the delight of the crowd.
"I won with 73 percent of the vote. I won with 67 percent of the vote," he said in the interview. "And I had some communities I was stronger in and some communities I was weaker in. But if you take away members of the Republican Party and conservative independents and then look across demographics, I do pretty damn well across all demographics."
The problem is, in places where Democrats don't outnumber Republicans six-to-one, it is not clear that excluding Republicans and conservative independents is a winning coalition.
Mr. de Blasio seemed at least aware of his potential political liabilities. While he wants to help win House seats nationwide — he cited the two swing districts in Iowa as a lure for him here — he wouldn't commit to campaigning in the handful of New York congressional battlegrounds next fall. Outside of New York City, Republicans in the state have used the mayor as a liberal boogeyman.
"They have to want me there," he said of helping candidates. "I'm not going to go bang on people's doors and say, 'Hey, I'm here!' They have to believe I can help them."
Mr. de Blasio did find himself banging on the doors of strangers in Iowa as recently as January 2016, when he campaigned for Mrs. Clinton not as a high-flying surrogate but as a lowly volunteer in the frozen final days before the caucuses. That trip seemed almost penance for his late endorsement.
Matt Paul, who was Mrs. Clinton's 2016 Iowa state director and later a senior national adviser, said there was certainly a role for Mr. de Blasio in helping Iowa Democrats ahead of 2018. If the party worries about "who was where in 2016, then we're looking in the wrong direction and going to lose," Mr. Paul said.
Friends and advisers say Mr. de Blasio would perhaps be happiest next in a job like chairman of the Democratic National Committee, where he could return to his political operative roots while mucking around in the minutiae of the party platform.
"I have my dream job," the mayor insisted. Of a future D.N.C. posting, he demurred: "I'm not doing theoreticals. I'm just not."
For now, Mr. de Blasio is determined to squeeze all the national influence he can out of his current job.
"I'm the mayor of the biggest city in the country," he said. "Obviously, I have a bully pulpit."
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