If many have disdain for the House Republican managers and the way they handled impeachment in the House and in the Senate, they see their own fate yoked to their House brethren, and fear the political consequences among the party faithful if they short-circuit the process. Whenever and however the impeachment dynamic ends, it will likely lead to a searing and soul-searching debate within GOP ranks, one that is unlikely to leave Senate leaders stronger than when they began the Congress. Now consider the other bookend, the upcoming 2000 election. Had Republicans in 1998 won, say, twenty seats in the House and four in the Senate, their margins would have been great enough to leave them confident, barring a cataclysm, of holding both chambers in 2000. But the actual results left them with a miniscule majority in the House, the smallest in 44 years, and with a vulnerable margin in the Senate.
Open contests are almost always more competitive than elections with an incumbent running.
The stakes are thus higher, and both parties will face contested nominations through primaries and caucuses. For the first time in most of our adult lifetimes, the White House, House and Senate are all genuinely up for grabs. This has several implications. Parties will be even more anxious than usual to define issue and policy differences with the other side, and to factor electoral politics into policy decisions. Building bipartisan coalitions will thus be harder.