(1) The GOP does a *little* better in 1998. Not *much* better, because the most vulnerable Democratic seats were already lost in 1994 (and not many regained in 1996) but I don't expect the GOP to actually *lose* House seats as it did in OTL.
(2) I do think Monicagate did marginally hurt Gore in 2000. Once the Senate failed to remove Clinton, public anger with the GOP on impeachment faded, while disapproval of Clinton's own conduct remained. True, he got high job performance ratings in the polls, but personal disapproval remained high. This helped make Bush's appeal to "change the tone in Washington, "restore honor and dignity," etc. more attractive. I don't say that Monicagate won Bush many votes, but it didn't have to win him many.
In addition, as already noted in this thread, Monicagate may be why Gore chose Lieberman as his running mate, whereas for example Bob Graham might have been more useful for carrying Florida. And even apart from that, I don't think Lieberman was a very strong candidate--it takes something special to lose a debate to Dick Cheney by 19 points!
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122760 Besides, a Gore-Shaheen ticket could have won NH and therefore the election even without Florida. Even two of the most extreme advocates of the argument that VP choices have little home-state effect writes that "According to estimates from our election forecasting models, a counterfactual Gore-Shaheen ticket would have won the small state of New Hampshire by at least 1 percentage point. Assuming that national political dynamics remained the same, Gore would have secured a majority of Electoral College votes, regardless of the outcome in Florida. The 2000 presidential election is the only election in recent history where a known vice presidential finalist plausibly
could have delivered an electorally decisive home state...."
http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-selection-matters-less-than-you-think-213805