A weakened president. A Congress swept by the opposition party, whose own caucus is deeply ideologically split. Fed-up voters demanding fixes for health care and the economy. Financial markets jittery.
It sounds a lot like the moment America finds itself in now, following an unprecedented “Blue Tsunami” that left Democrats in control of both the U.S. House and the Senate. But it’s actually how Fortune’s Ann Reilly Dowd described Washington in December 1994, after Rep. Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” and the right-wing populist movement he led helped Republicans win both chambers of Congress during President Bill Clinton’s first term.
“Both parties are more polarized, with the Democratic caucus moving to the left, Republicans to the right,” Dowd wrote. She warned of “the specter of a weakened President” and quoted a Washington analyst who advised investors: “We’re in for a very rocky stretch.”
What happened after what became known as the Gingrich Revolution in 1994 is a useful cautionary tale for Democrats today: The House passed most of the promised measures in Gingrich’s Contract With America in its first 100 days, but much of the legislation stalled in the Senate. Clashes with Clinton led to two government shutdowns. And Clinton was easily reelected in 1996. The GOP majority did notch some policy wins by cutting deals with the president, including welfare reform in 1996 and a capital-gains tax cut in 1997—and many see in 1994 the seeds of the antiestablishment fervor that led to the rise of the Tea Party, and later Trump’s MAGA movement.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has promised today’s disgruntled voters that “relief is on the way.” Democrats have set themselves a long to-do list, from affordability and Medicare for All to removing tariffs and ending the war with Iran.
And there’s a new crisis that Gingrich and Clinton couldn’t have imagined in 1994. “People really effing hate data centers,” Michigan’s senator-elect, Abdul El-Sayed, said on the campaign trail, as Fortune’s Catherina Gioino reported. In Ohio alone, voters in at least 14 municipalities passed bans or other restrictions. Broadly, voters are looking to Democrats to guide the AI infrastructure buildout with common-sense limitations, rather than outright bans, Gioino argued.
Can Democrats deliver on that extensive agenda with Trump still holding a veto pen? As the conservative strategist William Kristol said in 1994: “This election is clearly a watershed ideologically, but how much translates into major public policy changes remains to be seen.”