Other Presidents have pivoted to the center after midterm-election losses. When President Bill Clinton’s party lost the House during his second year in office, Clinton “revised his approach to governing,” says Russell Riley, co-chair of the presidential oral-history program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Clinton worked with then House Speaker Newt Gingrich on sweeping welfare reform and a balanced budget–issues Clinton then successfully ran on in his 1996 re-election campaign.
Russell Riley
