1998:
Later on, when Gingrich is campaigning just before the election in his own Georgia district, Pack catches him taking a cat nap in the back of a British double-decker bus. Gingrich wakes up to a nightmare. Rather than gaining between 10 and 40 House seats, his Republican conference shrinks by five members.“This was a night I was generally confused,” Gingrich confesses. “It was not the election I would have predicted.” House Republicans, who had earlier tried to oust him in a failed coup, now demand Gingrich’s scalp for nearly losing their majority. Uninspired by the prospect of leading a smaller, more hostile majority, Gingrich decides to step aside as speaker and eventually resigns from Congress altogether.
For political observers of any stripe, the results of Election '98 were practically unthinkable as Democrats defied precedent and most predictions to gain five House seats, two statehouses, while holding their own in the Senate. Only once since the Civil War has a sitting president's party gained congressional seats in a midterm election, and since 1938, the party controlling the White House has lost an average of 44 seats. Add that to the Lewinsky scandal, and members of both parties figured 1998 to be a year of greater Republican dominance in Congress and the statehouses. For the White House, which faces a GOP-led impeachment inquiry in the House, the results could hardly have been more gratifying.
Election Day Coverage from TIME Daily:
Democrats Turn the Tide
Election '98 becomes a major upset for the GOP as Democrats actually gain seats. But the Bush brothers are safe.
Gingrich took to the phones on the afternoon of Election Day still predicting that the President would be made to pay for his sins and that the Republicans would pick up six to 30 seats. But as the hours passed, the numbers just kept getting worse, and by 10 p.m. the Republicans were barely breaking even in the House. Then another seat looked vulnerable. Then seven more. Then, around 10:45, 13 seats. "At that point, we thought we lost the House," one said later. When the last returns came in, Gingrich had lost five seats--a setback not matched since 1822. "Well," said Gingrich when it was all over, "we all misjudged this one."