Away from the historic proceedings, Republicans were eyeing the coming war in 2020. In the weeks leading up to the impeachment vote, GOP candidates and outside groups have been pulling in piles of cash from aggrieved donors eager to turn Democratic freshmen into one-term members, and recruiting more formidable candidates ready to enter the fight.

One of the biggest GOP outside groups, the American Action Network, announced a $2.5 million ad blitz in battleground districts immediately after the vote, bringing its total impeachment-related spending to $11 million. The group will run TV ads in nine districts held by the most vulnerable members, slamming them for voting for “a politically motivated charade.”

Republicans face an uphill climb in their attempts to reclaim the House next year. Still, GOP strategists say the furor over impeachment could provide a jolt to once-sleepy races and boost new candidates.

“It’s this obsession with impeachment that is going to cost them their seats,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's campaign arm. “It’s going to cost them their majority.”

Some of the House GOP reinforcement has come from Trump himself.

Sean Parnell, an Army veteran challenging Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) in western Pennsylvania, was running on the treadmill Wednesday morning when Trump referenced him in a pair of tweets. One urged voters to back Parnell because of Lamb’s support of impeachment. A second blasted Parnell's WinRed fundraising page out to the president’s nearly 68 million followers.

“Everyone that voted for Trump and then voted for Lamb in 2018 is angry right now,” Parnell said. “Those people are motivated in a way I’ve never seen before.”

Lamb, first elected in a 2018 special election, is among 31 Democrats whose districts backed Trump for president, 29 of whom ultimately voted for at least one article of impeachment. Just two Democrats, long-time Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and freshman Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey — soon to become a Republican — opposed both articles of impeachment. One Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted only to impeach Trump for abuse of power.

Those Democrats under fire have remained sedate as they faced swarms of reporters heading to and from the House chamber — hardened by weeks, and in some cases months, of hounding in their battleground districts. They face protesting, pro-Trump crowds — and progressive activists pushing them toward impeachment at their town hall mics.

In statements and interviews announcing their decision to impeach, swing-district Democrats said they were forced to act by Trump’s blatant attempt to solicit help from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to boost his own reelection campaign.

And they did so with full understanding of the political risks. Members like Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.) and Cunningham all hold districts the president carried by 13 points or greater.

“Would I like to represent the people of Arizona still? Yes,” said second-term Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran, who holds an expansive, Trump-won district . “Do I look at that as a reason to vote or not vote on something as important as this, and something as serious as this? No, not at all.”

On the day of the impeachment vote, many of the targeted Democrats faced more direct threats: About a dozen “trackers” were deployed by the GOP campaign arm to film members as they traversed the Capitol.

Videos of the interactions, including one in which Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) ignored questions on camera, were quickly distributed to the press — the kind of hard-line tactics that Democrats have said should be out-of-bounds.

GOP leaders have gleefully cast the vote as a death wish for dozens of Democratic freshman who flipped seats by running as pragmatists and political moderates. Their message: Democrats wasted months on a sharply partisan process that impeded their ability to achieve tangible gains for their constituents.

Democrats, meanwhile, will return to their districts this week after one of the most productive legislative stretches of the entire year, which they hope will buoy them against the GOP attacks on impeachment.

In the two weeks before the Christmas break, House Democrats will have cleared a sprawling Pentagon policy bill, a $1.4 trillion spending bill, and their signature drug pricing bill — as well as Trump’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

All of those bills are packed with local wins: The SPOONS Act, critical to Brindisi’s district. A ban on one-way-only tolling on a New York bridge in Rose’s district. A pharmaceutical provision in the trade deal hard-fought by Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.).

Pelosi’s signature drug pricing bill, alone, featured amendments from a half-dozen battleground freshman, including Cunningham.

Still, in some districts, there is fear among Democrats that their reelection fights have become tougher since the House formally embraced the impeachment inquiry this fall.

In the three months since Democrats formally launched an impeachment inquiry, the NRCC has fielded credible candidates in top targets in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine and Michigan.

Republican candidates have also described a surge of interest and small-donor donations in the days leading up to Wednesday’s vote.

Oklahoma state Sen. Stephanie Bice — a Republican looking to unseat Horn — had her strongest online fundraising day on Tuesday, when Horn announced her support for the articles of impeachment.

“Very early on, I was surprised at the number of people that I ran into that said that they voted for Kendra and realized that that was probably not a wise choice,” Bice said in an interview, adding that voters frequently approach her at events to complain about the impeachment process.

“They are responding to messages on social media left and right about people that said, ‘I’ve donated online, and I want to help,’ or ‘Let me know how I can volunteer,’” Bice said. “There’s been a tremendous amount of activity.”

The big question for control of the House is whether impeachment puts enough seats in play to seriously endanger Democrats’ majority. Republicans say their top targets are the Democrats in Trump-won districts, a list they’ve called the “Dirty 30.”

But some of those seats are more promising prospects than others. The president only cleared 50 percent in 13 of them, and several still lack well-funded or credible recruits, including those held by Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.).

Some Democrats also privately believe the timing of the impeachment vote — just before Christmas, when lawmakers’ schedules are typically light on public events — could help their districts focus on policy wins instead.

Taking their toughest votes just before a holiday break will be a far cry from the angry town halls Republicans faced in August 2017, when people packed local auditoriums and city council rooms to rail against them for voting to repeal Obamacare just weeks before.

“I think it’s probably not a bad thing that we’re all going to spend a little time with family and friends and cool the temperatures a little bit before things start back up again,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who faces a well-funded challenge from the son of a former New Jersey governor.

Most centrist Democrats say they are eager to get past the noise of impeachment, which has consumed Washington since the first story on Trump’s contact with Ukraine broke in late September.

“I’ve told people in advance how I was going to vote and my reasons for it. After the vote is taken, I will further elaborate on that,” said Wild, whose Pennsylvania district narrowly went for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “Beyond that, I just want to get today behind us and continue on with the work that I came here to do.”