WASHINGTON – In June, during one of the best stretches of his presidency, Barack Obama strode through a West Wing hallway exclaiming, “Offense! Stay on offense!”

It was a rally cry for a White House that suddenly seemed to find its footing in the final quarter of Obama’s tenure. An Asia-Pacific trade agreement was moving forward, as was the diplomatic opening with Cuba and work on an historic nuclear accord with Iran. The Supreme Court upheld a key tenet of the president’s long-embattled health care law and legalized gay marriage nationwide. Even in the depths of tragedy following a church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, the president struck an emotional chord with his stirring eulogy for the victims.

“I said at the beginning of this year that interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter – and we are only halfway through,” Obama said during his annual year-end news conference.

But the seventh year of Obama’s presidency also challenged anew his cautious and restrained approach to international crises, particularly in the Middle East. Attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, heightened fears of terror on American soil, and Obama’s attempts to reassure Americans fell flat. And a seemingly endless string of mass shootings elsewhere in the country exposed the sharp limits of Obama’s power to implement the gun control measures he speaks of with passion.

Obama now stares down 11 months before his successor is chosen in an election shaping up to be a referendum on his leadership at home and abroad.

Trip to Cuba likely

The president is packing his final year with foreign travel and has about a half-dozen trips abroad planned, including a likely visit to Cuba. The White House’s legislative agenda is slim and centers mostly on areas where he already has overlapping priorities with Republicans, including final passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact and criminal justice reform. But he’s also eyeing provocative executive actions, including an expansion of background checks for gun purchases and the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

A term in reverse

At times, Obama’s second term has appeared to play out in reverse.

He struggled to capitalize on his decisive re-election victory in 2012, stumbling through a two-year stretch that exposed the limits of his power and made him a political liability for his party.

Then in an unexpected twist, his party’s devastating defeats in the 2014 midterm election spurred one of the most productive years of his presidency, positioning Obama to be a valuable political ally for Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“Barack Obama will loom over the election,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a longtime Obama adviser who left the White House earlier this year.

Advisers say the Supreme Court’s ruling in May, which upheld the subsidies of Obama’s health care law, came as a particular relief to the president. The decision ensures the law survives his presidency. Republican contenders pledge to repeal it.

Fighting ISIS

Nearly every hopeful running for president – including Clinton, his former secretary of state – is calling for more aggressive action to fight the Islamic State group. Obama has inched the military deeper into the conflict, including backtracking on his refusal to put U.S. troops on the ground in Syria, but has largely stuck with his initial strategy of combating the extremist group from the air.

Limited opportunities

As he closed out 2015, Obama promised he wouldn’t fade into the background in his final year in office. But he’s also realistic about the limited legislative opportunities for a Democratic president and Republican-led Congress in a presidential election year.

His relatively modest congressional agenda includes final passage of the TPP trade pact, criminal justice reforms, dealing with Puerto Rico’s debt crisis and funding programs to address the spike in opioid use.

At least some Republicans say they’re willing to work with the president in his final year.

“I think if you look at what we’ve been able to work with him on this year, it’s a good, telling piece of the kinds of things we can do next year,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. “We worked very well on education reform, the highway bill, on human trafficking legislation – so there were some significant bipartisan accomplishments that we have been able to achieve this year.”

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., echoed that sentiment, saying “There are a lot of opportunities” to work with the president in his final year in office.

Obama’s legacy

Of course, Obama’s legacy will be determined far more by the outcome of the presidential campaign than his 2016 legislative agenda. Since many of his most prominent moves have been the result of executive actions, a Republican president could largely wipe them away, while a Democrat is more likely to keep them in place and perhaps even expand on them.

White House aides say the president is eager to campaign for the party’s nominee, as well as Democrats in other races. He chafed at being kept on the sidelines in the 2014 midterms, and advisers used Democrats’ sweeping losses in that campaign as an I-told-you-so moment for party officials.

This time, Obama isn’t waiting for an invitation from the Democratic nominee to make his campaign plans.

“I will have a Democratic successor, and I will campaign very hard to make that happen,” he said.