The expectation that welfare retrenchment and expansion have electoral consequences for governing parties is commonplace in welfare state research. Previous research either argues that welfare state change has electoral consequences across the board or that this is at least the case under certain conditions, such as pro-welfare parties in government. In this study, we synthesize existing theoretical approaches into a stylized theoretical model that illustrates their fundamental assumptions. We also discuss why these assumptions may be questionable. We then conduct an empirical analysis of the electoral fates of government parties in 19 European countries. The results show that there is practically no evidence for electoral consequences following welfare state changes even under the conditions presented in the literature. The implication is that the link between welfare changes and electoral consequences rests on stronger assumptions than hitherto suggested, such as fixed voter preferences and voters’ ability to observe welfare changes.