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WASHINGTON — At historic moments in the television age, past American presidents turned to the Oval Office as their stage.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy interrupted prime-time shows to tell Americans from the Oval Office why they had ordered troops to desegregate schools. Bill Clinton broke into programming from behind the presidential desk three times in a month to explain military actions in Haiti and Iraq. Ronald Reagan, the telegenic former actor, set the record for evening addresses from the Oval Office desk: 29 over two terms.

Even the untelegenic Richard M. Nixon spoke 22 times from the Oval Office in just five years, the last time to resign in disgrace.

The current president? It was three years ago this summer that Mr. Obama gave his only two prime-time addresses from the Oval Office — the first on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the second on ending combat operations in Iraq.

That ties the number for George W. Bush at a similar point in his presidency. After Mr. Bush’s first Oval Office address, on Sept. 11, 2001, he gave just five more in eight years. The statistics come from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“I wouldn’t say the Oval Office address is a thing of the past,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidency scholar at Towson University in Maryland. “It’s just going to be reserved for those presidents and those occasions where they feel they have to use it.”

That is a sign of the times. In the second half of the 20th century, word that the president would address the nation made Americans stop and listen. For many baby boomers in particular, the speeches define the historical timeline of their lives.

But in this century, the Internet revolution and advances in television technology have changed presidents, citizens and the broadcasters who traditionally connected the two.

Instead of just three TV networks, Americans have myriad choices for entertainment and information, and viewership numbers for prime-time presidential addresses have fallen, to about 25 million. Faced with new competition, broadcasters resist giving airtime to presidents, so presidents give fewer addresses (and evening news conferences). When they do want to speak, they increasingly choose arrangements more comfortable to them than sitting at a desk staring at a lens — a setup that Mr. Obama, known for his oratorical skills, likes no more than Mr. Bush did.

“I think it’s an odd format, and it makes him seem a little more stilted than he is, compared to standing before a crowd or in an interview,” said Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for Mr. Obama. “If someone convinces him that it makes sense, he’ll do it. But I don’t think it’s his favorite venue.”

Even some supporters argue that a formal Oval Office address makes sense now because it would allow Mr. Obama to better address criticism of his health care law and the surveillance programs of the National Security Agency.

Among the proponents is a former spokesman for Mr. Obama, Robert Gibbs. “When the president speaks from the office that he occupies, and where he sits to make some of the biggest, most important decisions in our country, I think it’s a piece of real estate that fits what you’re trying to talk about and the decisions that you’re trying to grapple with,” Mr. Gibbs said. “It would be a perfect place for an N.S.A. address.”

Yet when a reporter floated the idea on Twitter, Mr. Obama’s senior strategist, Dan Pfeiffer, called it “an argument from the ‘80s” — when Reagan could draw tens of millions of viewers because three networks dominated the airwaves, cable TV was limited, and the Internet was not yet in wide use.

Like most Americans over 30, his advisers have memories of watching Oval Office addresses. In second grade, Mr. Pfeiffer wrote to Reagan to complain about the interruptions to his favorite program, “The A-Team.” For Mr. Favreau, born in 1981, the year Reagan took office, the recollections start with Mr. Clinton. “I remember seeing him in Oval Office addresses and thinking it was a huge deal,” he said. “The whole family gathered around the television.”

Yet both men, once working in the White House, came to see such events as something mostly for the memories. Each has done his part to help Mr. Obama continue the trend that Mr. Bush started of holding fewer Oval Office addresses.

And, Mr. Pfeiffer said, “I am willing to guarantee the next president will do it even less often than we do, assuming the media continues the same trajectory it’s on.”

Mr. Obama, like Mr. Bush on occasion, has come to prefer the more dramatic staging of striding down the White House’s red-carpeted Cross Hall, then coming to a stop to speak, standing, at the stately East Room entry. He did that three times in 2011, speaking about Osama bin Laden’s killing, plans to leave Afghanistan and a debt-limit crisis.

“Aesthetically, the walk down the Cross Hall is a very powerful thing,” Mr. Pfeiffer said.

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush also took to traveling to places pertinent to their messages, and perhaps more vivid to networks and viewers. Mr. Obama unveiled his Afghanistan policy to an audience of cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, for example. Mr. Bush addressed Hurricane Katrina from Jackson Square in New Orleans, where his speech was made possible by generators and communications equipment supplied by the White House.

For decades, technology did not allow such versatility. So both baby boomers and their children grew up with the familiar Oval Office shot.

With about 44,000 televisions nationwide in 1947, a small audience saw Harry S. Truman give the first address broadcast from the White House. He urged Americans to conserve food to aid postwar Europe — with “meatless Tuesdays,” for example — setting the tone for later presidents, who would also use TV to directly appeal to Americans for support and even sacrifice.

In 1950, 9 percent of households had televisions, but the figure had jumped to 87 percent in 1960, near the end of Eisenhower’s presidency, Ms. Kumar, the presidency scholar, said. “I really think that Eisenhower is the first television president,” she said — not Kennedy, as popularly believed.

After ordering troops to Little Rock, Ark., in 1957 to protect nine black teenagers who were integrating the all-white Central High School, Eisenhower told viewers why he was explaining his actions from the Oval Office. “I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course,” he said.

But he also got time for more routine or obviously political speeches that networks would reject now — to talk about his first-year accomplishments, his foreign trips (before and after) and his decision to seek re-election.

“If the White House asked for time, you did it,” said Robin Sproul, who has been the Washington bureau chief for ABC News for 20 years.

As time went on, networks already reluctant to sacrifice airtime pushed back against requests for speeches they deemed insufficiently newsworthy and too political. Ms. Sproul, however, expressed a sense that the nation had lost “that feeling of coming together as a country” that was once offered by such addresses. Except for presidential debates, she said, which last fall drew up to 67 million viewers, “there is no joint-community, town-hall-type experience anymore.”

WASHINGTON — At a leadership table of septuagenarians, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York has just emerged as the Democrats’ face of generational change.

Mr. Jeffries, a 48-year-old Brooklynite with a golden tongue, was elected by his fellow Democrats on Wednesday to the relatively obscure position of chairman of the House Democratic caucus. It is the No. 5 leadership spot, but Mr. Jeffries is now on the fast track, with the potential to make history as the first black speaker of the House.

“Hakeem represents the leading edge of a new wave of Democrats,” said Steve Israel, the former New York congressman and onetime chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “I think he tapped into a sense in the caucus that the next generation of leaders needs to begin crystallizing.”

As Mr. Jeffries takes his place in Democratic leadership, at least two, and possibly three, of the top spots will be occupied by lawmakers who are pushing 80. A fourth, Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, who has been elected assistant Democratic leader, is, at 46, younger than Mr. Jeffries, but not as talked-about. One of the septuagenarians, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who is hoping to be elected speaker , is calling herself a “transitional” figure. Mr. Jeffries, questioned about his aspirations, sought to dismiss the speculation.

“Not at all,” he said, asked if he would like to be speaker. He said he felt “a heavy burden” in his new post, which required him to immediately preside over the internal races on Wednesday for other top leadership spots, including speaker.

“It’s like the shortest transition in American history,” he said.

But in a caucus where seniority is prized, Mr. Jeffries’s ambitions — which he has not taken pains to mask — can rub some people the wrong way. He answered carefully when asked how long he believed Ms. Pelosi’s “transition” should take, saying it was up to her to decide.

“I think she has correctly said if she’s the next speaker that she is not going to lame-duck herself,” he said, “particularly because we’re dealing with the Trump administration, we’re dealing with Mitch McConnell and the boys in the Senate, and we’re dealing with some of Trump’s friendly co-conspirators in the House.”

In one hint of his ambitions, Mr. Jeffries kept up a busy travel schedule during the campaign season, headlining fund-raisers for House Democrats in Michigan, Rhode Island, California and other states. But his victory on Wednesday was not easy; he edged out Representative Barbara Lee of California, a progressive icon, 123 to 113.

Their race split the Congressional Black Caucus (both are members) and reflected deep tensions among Democrats over who should lead the party forward amid an influx of young newcomers who are agitating for change .

Ms. Lee, 72, said afterward that she “absolutely” saw ageism and sexism at work.

“That’s something women, especially women of color and African-American women, have to fight constantly, each and every day,” she said, adding, “We still have many glass ceilings to break.”

Mr. Jeffries, in response, called the race “a friendly contest of ideas.” Inside the auditorium where elections were held, one of his backers, Representative Juan C. Vargas of California, likened him to another black Democrat with an unusual name and a gift for oratory: former President Barack Obama.

“When I got to Congress, my wife asked me if there was anyone in Congress that reminded me of Barack Obama, and I said, ‘Yeah, there’s this guy Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn, I think he’s the next guy,’” Mr. Vargas said, according to one person in the room.

Mr. Jeffries, the son of a social worker for the state and a case worker for the City of New York, has a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University and a law degree from New York University, and worked as a corporate lawyer, including for CBS, before entering politics. He won his first race in 2006, securing a seat in the New York State Assembly after two unsuccessful attempts. In 2012, he was elected to Congress.

Mr. Jeffries has long been on the political radar in New York; in 2015, he was talked about as a possible candidate for mayor, though he made clear at the time that he preferred to stay in the House.

Here in Washington, he is known as a fierce and fiery critic of President Trump; after racial violence erupted last year in Charlottesville, Va., he accused Mr. Trump of playing “political footsie” with the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, telling CNN , “It’s time for him to stop acting like a two-bit racial hustler and start acting like the president of the United States of America.”

But while he is progressive, he is also a pragmatist, and is regarded as someone who may be able to bridge deep divisions that have erupted in the Democratic caucus between the ascendant left and the so-called red-to-blue members, who flipped Republican seats in districts won by Mr. Trump.

He has also served as a chairman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, the arm of the party responsible for developing its message during the midterm elections. The committee came up with the catchphrase “For the People,” which Mr. Jeffries often sprinkles in his public remarks.

Mr. Jeffries owes his spot in leadership to this spring’s stunning upset by his fellow New Yorker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who unseated Representative Joseph Crowley , the current caucus chairman, in a primary. Mr. Crowley was viewed by some as an heir apparent to the speakership, and has been a mentor to Mr. Jeffries, whose oratorical gifts — he gives speeches extemporaneously, without notes — Mr. Crowley enthusiastically praised.

“There isn’t a word that comes out of his mouth that his mind hasn’t already approved,” Mr. Crowley said, adding, “I think the sky’s the limit for Hakeem.”

Mr. Jeffries’s ascent, alongside that of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, sets up a fascinating dynamic among New Yorkers in the House. She is the outsider pushing for change; he is the insider climbing the ranks. And should Mr. Trump win re-election in 2020, it is possible that three New Yorkers — the president; Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader; and Mr. Jeffries — would hold the reins of power in Washington.

Republicans today declared a political revolution, promised to balance the Federal budget and generally reveled in winning control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years.

The depth of their victory was sounded by the fact that no sitting Republican governor, senator or representative was defeated.

Behaving more like striped-pants diplomats than the cranky, feuding politicians who had exchanged insults in the final days of the campaign, President Clinton and the Republican Congressional leaders, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas and Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, promised to look for areas where they could work together.

President Clinton told a White House news conference, “I am going to do my dead level best” to work with Republicans, and identified welfare reform as an area where “I think we will get an agreement.”

Representative Gingrich, in line to become Speaker in a House where not one member has ever served under a Republican, said in an interview that he hoped his party could find a way to deal with Mr. Clinton and “package some things he can sign while he is vetoing others.” He identified welfare reform, allowing the President to veto specific spending items and not just entire bills, and increasing the tax benefits for parents with children as matters that “fit rhetorically” with the President’s aims.

Senator Dole, who will be Senate majority leader again, said he had called the President to tell him, “I wanted to let you know right up front that we want to work together where we can.” But he offered fewer specifics, saying he would work with Mr. Clinton to secure approval of the new international trade agreement, but that he expected Mr. Clinton to explain the pact to the nation. [ Excerpts from comments by President Clinton, Representative Gingrich and Senator Dole, page B8. ]

With eight of the House races not yet decided, the Republican landslide produced a gain of at least 49 Representatives — for a total of 227, to 199 for the Democrats and one independent. The Democratic casualties included the Speaker of the House, Thomas S. Foley, the former Ways and Means chairman, Dan Rostenkowski, and the Judiciary chairman, Jack Brooks.

In the Senate, Republicans won eight additional seats, and their edge went to 53-46 when Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, who was elected eight years ago as a Democrat but who votes with Republicans on major issues, made an anticlimactic announcement this morning that Southern conservatives were no longer welcome in the Democratic party and joined the new majority. The California Senate race between the Democratic incumbent, Dianne Feinstein, and the Republican Michael Huffington, remained undecided today, although Ms. Feinstein claimed victory.

Their gains were most dramatic among governors, where they held California, won New York and Texas, and gained eight overall, so there are now 31 Republicans, 18 Democrats and one independent.

Haley Barbour, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the success of Republican officeholders showed the mood was not anti-incumbent, or anti-Washington.

He said it was a “historic victory,” with voters embracing Republican ideas of smaller government, lower taxes, “and more individual freedom and personal responsibility, instead of more government power and government responsibility.”

David Wilhelm, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, did not offer any complicated excuses. He said: “Well, we made history last night. Call it what you want: an earthquake, a tidal wave, a blowout. We got our butts kicked. We’re bruised and battered, but we’re still standing.”

President Clinton offered three explanations for the results. He said that first, the public was dismayed at Washington business as usual, from lobbying to campaign spending to partisanship, and was saying, “Democrats are in charge — we’re holding you responsible, and we hope you hear this, Mr. President.”

The second message he discerned was skepticism about whether the Administration had really done what it claimed about crime and the deficit, but that even if it had: “We still feel insecure. We don’t feel that our incomes are going up, that our jobs are more stable, that our neighborhoods are safer, that the fabric of American life is growing more civilized and more law-abiding.”

Finally, he said the public was saying, “We don’t think the government can solve all the problems and we don’t want the Democrats telling us from Washington that they know what is right about everything.”

The legislative leaders avoided discussions of how their cooperation, and confrontation, could affect Mr. Clinton’s likely bid for re-election in 1996. Mr. Dole, asked again if he intended to run himself, replied, “I’ve thought about it.”

Mr. Gingrich said the Republicans on the House would move swiftly after the new Congress convenes, on Jan. 4, to adopt the legislation specified in their “Contract With America,” which was signed by at least 219 Republican candidates who won election yesterday.

The first day the House meets, he said, it would adopt a bill to require Congress to operate under laws relating to working conditions and the environment that it imposes on others. Other major items in the “contract” are cutting the number of House committees and reducing their staffs by one-third; passing a constitutional amendment to require a balanced Federal budget; the line-item veto, and an income tax credit of $500 a child, called the “American Dream Restoration Act.”

Mr. Dole identified his priorities as the balanced budget amendment, “welfare reform, maybe a vote on term limits.” He said many efforts would focus on Congress, from staff reductions to lobbying laws.

“We can’t let somebody say, ‘Well, we won the election and we don’t have to worry about that for a couple of years.” He said the public had elected Republicans because they had made these promises, and “If we don’t do some of these things, they are going to cancel our lease.”

There are plainly some items on this short list on which Mr. Clinton and the Republicans can agree. One is the line-item veto, which he campaigned for, but soft-pedaled because of the intense opposition of Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who headed the Senate Appropriations Committee and who regards the proposal as a betrayal of hundreds of years of democratic tradition. As a ranking minority member, Mr. Byrd may no longer be an impenetrable obstacle, although his skill with Senate procedures will still be a major hurdle.

A constitutional amendment to require a balanced Federal budget has had almost enough support in recent Congresses to get the required two-thirds majorities. It is likely to have it now, with the departure of such powerful, skilled opponents as Speaker Foley and Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine, the majority leader, who retired.

And legislation to limit lawsuits over how manufacturers of equipment are liable for damages when users are injured, known as “product liability legislation,” seems likely to escape the Democratic filibuster that killed it this year. Five of the 41 senators who voted for the filibuster are gone, along with Mr. Brooks, an implacable House foe.

But other things on this list are much more difficult. Both the President and the Republicans say they want to change welfare so that people do not spend their lives on it.

Republicans tend to favor automatic time limits after which recipients are cut off, while most Democrats are reluctant to cut people off if no job is available. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, for example, said Republicans would push for reform that saved money and said of recipients: “If they work hard, we’ll help them. If they don’t work hard, they will have to work hard.”

Nor is it clear just what strategy Senate Democrats will pursue.

As Mr. Dole and the Republicans demonstrated again and again, a strong minority can block action on many measures in the Senate. It only takes 41 senators to prolong a filibuster, so if Democrats are unified, they can find that strength among their 47-member minority.

But the retiring Senator Mitchell said at a news conference, “I do not recommend confrontation.” He said, “The fact that it worked for the Republicans this time doesn’t mean that it will work for Democrats or others in the future.”

There is also some question of how well Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich will work with each other. Mr. Dole has often been critical of his colleague’s firebrand tactics, and Mr. Gingrich once called Mr. Dole the “tax collector for the welfare state.”

But today each spoke of how Mr. Gingrich would have a different role now. Mr. Gingrich compared being Speaker of the whole House of Representatives with being a head coach. As deputy minority leader, he said, using a football metaphor, he was more of an aggressive “middle linebacker” for the partisan minority. (The leader, Robert H. Michel of Illinois, retired.) Mr. Dole said, “Newt understands — in fact he has asked me if I would meet with and sit down and talk to him about being in the majority.”

Mr. Dole said he anticipated no difficulties with transforming some of his party’s more contentious senior minority members into chairmen. He said Strom Thurmond, the 91-year-old Senator from South Carolina, would head the Armed Services Committee, Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York would head Banking, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina would head Foreign Relations.

Most of the Senate Republicans who will advance to chairmanships are known quantities. But presumptive House chairmen like Representative Floyd D. Spence of South Carolina at Armed Services, or Carlos J. Moorhead of California at Energy and Commerce, are largely unknown, because House Republicans have had limited legislative roles.

One ranking member who will not progress to a chairmanship is Representative Joseph M. McDade of Pennsylvania, who is under indictment for bribery. Mr. Gingrich said he had told Mr. McDade in July “he would not be chairman” and intended to take the Democrats’ approach of barring indicted members from chairmanships.

Otherwise, Mr. Gingrich said, ranking members would not automatically become chairmen.