Most Democrats are "center-left," not "way left," former Vice President Joe Biden argued in an interview airing Friday, and while he believes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a "brilliant, bright woman" her far-left stances are not what his party needs to win national elections.
"Look, it's center-left, that's where I am," Biden told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday in Iowa. "Where it's not is way left."
Biden pointed out that most swing districts were won by moderate Democrats in the 2018 elections, and he believes that is what the upcoming presidential election "is about."
"I'm happy to debate that issue and all those issues with my friends because guess what, look who won the races. Look who won last time out," Biden said.
With Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, "she won a primary. In the general election fights, who won? Mainstream Democrats who are very progressive on social issues and very strong on education."
Ocasio-Cortez has become a party star after defeating incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley in New York's 4th Congressional District primary and then taking the general election in the heavily Democratic district.
Biden said he wishes he had been labeled as a moderate when he was running for the Senate in Delaware "back in the day."
Meanwhile, Democrats have said Biden could better his chances of defeating President Donald Trump, should he win the nomination, by picking a woman as his running mate.
He told Cuomo that he did not want to be presumptive by saying if he'd pick one person or another as vice president, but commented that he thinks "it'd be great to have a female vice president and if I don't win, it'd be great to have a female president."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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