Nobody—and I mean NOBODY—can say if the Senate would or would not convict Donald Trump of high crimes/misdemeanors. What I can guarantee, though, is that no Senate Republican (or any Republican) wants such a public trial—let alone an on-the-record vote before an election—to ever take place. Therefore, plenty on The Right (and probably plenty of Trump-supporting foreign operatives and bots) are telling America that the Senate’s Republican control makes it pointless for the House to even start impeachment proceedings.
Wrong, wrong, and BULLSHIT! Foremost, given just the information that is public, the House has a moral and Constitutional duty to (eventually) conduct a full impeachment process. To shirk this responsibility would be an enormous failure of oversight, not to mention an insult to decency and the Rule of Law. To forego, for political reasons, conducting the House impeachment process would be immensely destructive for the future of our nation.
Regardless, I believe that Dems in the House and Senate are overwhelming in favor of House impeachment. How could they not be?—the public evidence to impeach is already vast and deeply criminal. And the political advantage to beaming such hearings to the entire the nation is most likely immense. Yet, I also believe that almost all such Dems are being instructed by leadership to hold their cards very close to their chests, and be patient in methodically checking off the boxes that will increasingly draw in public support. (Dems also first need to gain access to relevant people and documents.)
Meanwhile, if Dems are to have ANY chance at reclaiming control of the Senate, an impeachment trial in the Senate is imperative. There, Republican Senators would face a lose-lose outcome: either vote to convict your own party’s President—because of the evidence presented in a nationally televised trial—and thereby demonstrate that you were complicit in a huge criminal operation for several years, or vote against conviction and prove yourself to be a party-before-country hack in front of the entire world. Either way, Dems should desperately want every Republican Senator to forever carry one of these two mantles.