With the impeachment of President Trump finally reaching the widely predicted and almost universally expected anticlimax, one question remains: What are the electoral consequences, or the lack thereof, for members of the House and Senate for their votes on what turned out to be an inconsequential issue?

The press has featured plenty of speculation on the consequences for Republicans who have supported the president. That has remained true even though the underlying premise of such accounts is that the weight of opinion has been in favor of impeachment and removal. Last October, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would consider impeachment, and would go ahead for weeks without an authorizing resolution, many polls showed pluralities for impeachment (though it was unclear in many cases whether respondents understood that impeachment by the House, without conviction by the Senate, would result in Trump remaining in office).