Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination, and ultimately the presidency, not only because he wasn’t Donald Trump but because he also convinced enough swing state voters that he wasn’t Bernie Sanders.
He’s a centrist with an agenda that first allayed the fears of moderate Democrats and then their Republican counterparts. The Biden-Harris campaign emphasized its political bona fides as centrists with its pushback against the charges of “socialism” Trump levied on the ticket before Election Day.
Yet, even after the Electoral College had formalized Biden’s election, the President-elect made sure to remind reporters his centrism wasn’t just for show.