OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Joe Biden took the stage slowly but steadily in Omaha on Friday. As he did, the 800 people inside the ballroom at the downtown Hilton rose to cheer.
“Did you see the results on Tuesday?” he asked, prompting another cheer as he listed Democratic victories from governorships in New Jersey and Virginia to the mayor’s seat in New York to a redistricting decision in California.
It was a welcome return to the political scene for the former president, whose party’s bid to stay in the White House was rejected just over a year ago. Biden called for a political comeback, though not for himself, but for a fight-hungry audience.
“You know what it’s like to be the underdog,” he told Democrats in Nebraska, where Republicans have carried the state in every presidential election since 1968. “But every election you put up yard signs and make your voices heard. The country needs you so much.”
It was the kind of pep talk that sells in a place where Democrats are losing statewide but have made a winning run on the Omaha-area 2nd District primary vote for the first time since 2009. elected as a democratic mayor and feels energetic that in 2026
Biden has given plenty of encouragement, but has repeatedly returned to his approach at the height of his lone term, curbing COVID-19 and starting a post-epidemic economic recovery.
He didn’t touch on the struggles they faced last year, or the years of Democratic debate over how they lost the presidency to Republican Donald Trump.
in 2024 over the summer, Biden waited more than three weeks after his disastrous June debate with Trump, sparking panic among Democrats, before announcing in July that he would not seek another term before endorsing then-Vice President Kamal Harris as his successor.
Harris wrote in a book released in September that she and others in Biden’s orbit should have been more aggressive in pushing him to leave sooner.
The closest Biden came to admitting the difficult decision was an oblique joke.
“I have the dubious distinction of being the youngest person elected to the United States Senate, and I’m the oldest damn president,” he playfully ranted.
While Biden’s delivery was quiet but spirited, he sometimes slurred his words and was sometimes so quiet he couldn’t be heard from the amplified podium. But he will return to the charge with fiery attacks on the Trump administration and calls for action.
“We have to fix our faults, and that’s what we started doing on Tuesday,” he shouted.
Tuesday’s victories, a boon for Democrats across the country, were a timely boost for Biden.
But he also benefited from an air of respect.
He was seated earlier in the program, but cheered when the audience stood up after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, also at the fundraiser, congratulated him “for a lifetime of service to our country.”
“He was a president who ran not red states, not blue states, but the entire United States,” Beshear said.
During the 30 minutes of Biden’s speech, the audience cheered. He returned to well-worn campaign themes promoting the middle class, equality and national responsibility as an example to other nations.
He called them principles “from which we have never escaped.” Raising his voice to make a point, he said, “We’re not going to get away from them now.”
It was Biden’s second public appearance in the past week and the second since he completed a round of radiation therapy in October for an aggressive form of prostate cancer he was diagnosed with after leaving office. He didn’t say anything about his health, and when he did mention cancer, it wasn’t about his own. It was about his late son Beau, who died in 2015.
It was Biden’s first purely political appearance since 2024. Labor Day, when he appeared with Harris at a labor event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, two months before 2024. November 5 elections.
If viewers on Friday questioned his decision on 2024. race, that seemed a distant memory as he finished his speech.
“Thank you Joe! Thank you Joe!” they chatted as he left the stage.