ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the electoral impact of impeachment votes and legislators' attempts to preempt or mitigate the negative fallout associated with those votes. It begins by describing the basic development of the research on financial determinants of electoral outcomes, focusing on the most significant recent work. The chapter estimates the impact of campaign funds on electoral outcomes for the 2000 election specifically, and the impact of impeachment votes on the 2000 election more generally. Given the political fallout from the Republicans' handling of the William Jefferson Clinton impeachment, the "impeachment" funds made the difference between keeping and losing control of the House of Representatives. Among House Republicans votes against impeachment were costly in terms of vote margins, but the campaign funds raised in response to the unpopularity of the votes prevented the party from losing control of the House of Representatives.
