WASHINGTON — The White House saw it coming, but still it stung.

When President Barack Obama was hit with the first veto override of his presidency on Wednesday, it landed as a clear reminder of his dwindling political influence, years of confounding relationships with Congress and shaky prospects for the few legislative priorities he has left. The fiercely competitive president has said he intends to keep working with Congress until the final buzzer sounds in January, but it’s not clear how much juice he’ll have left.

Only one of his 44 fellow Democrats in the Senate — Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — stood by Obama to uphold his veto of a piece of Sept. 11 legislation. Every Republican voted to override. The Republican-led House followed suit — eagerly exceeding the two-thirds threshold necessary to push the legislation into law over the president’s objections.

It was, perhaps, an unavoidable turn of events. No modern president has made it through two full terms without Congress overriding at least one of his vetoes. Obama’s record measures up well compared to his two predecessors. George W. Bush suffered four and Bill Clinton two.

It might also be expected that if an override was coming it would happen now, at the tail end of a term, just weeks ahead of the election, when the political interests of the soon-to-be retiring president and the still-in-the-game lawmakers are at their widest.

Still, the White House was ruffled by the public rebuke.

When a reporter noted the 97-1 vote was the widest margin for an override vote since 1983, White House spokesman Josh Earnest retorted: “I would venture to say that this is the single most embarrassing thing that the United States Senate has done, possibly, since 1983.”

Obama delivered a more measured, but still harsh, assessment.

“It was basically a political vote,” Obama told CNN, not sparing Democrats from his critique. “Sometimes you have to do what’s hard. And, frankly, I wish Congress here had done what’s hard. ... But I didn’t expect it.”

Few would have expected this public display of party divisions and hot-headed hyperbole over this legislation. The long-stalled bill, which allows the families of Sept. 11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for the kingdom’s alleged backing of the attackers, has long flown under the radar, kept alive by a committed group of families, despite firm opposition from the Saudi government and many in the national security establishment.

The families found bipartisan backers in Congress and a moment this fall. The votes in the House and Senate came just days before the before the 15th anniversary of the attacks and two new bombing plots in the New York and New Jersey area.