Democrats might think Gordon Sondland’s testimony was a bombshell that seals President Trump’s impeachment fate, but to Republicans, nothing has changed.

Republicans parried Sondland’s testimony Wednesday that President Trump pressured Ukraine for politically helpful favors by noting that Sondland admitted he never heard Trump say so in so many words. Sondland and others who have testified in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings are drawing baseless conclusions, Republicans maintain — “presumptions” that Trump withheld U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv announced it was launching probes into Democrats.

Besides, said Rep. Devin Nunes of Tulare, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Trump had good reason for believing Ukraine interfered on Democrats’ behalf in the 2016 election — a widely discredited theory that Trump wanted Kyiv to say it was investigating, along with probes of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter for which no supporting evidence has emerged.

In the conservative worldview, if Democrats think the testimony from Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, is going to get Trump thrown out of office by the GOP-run Senate after the House presumably impeaches him, they’re mistaken.

There are more than a few signs that’s accurate.

At least 20 Republican senators would have to vote against Trump in an impeachment trial in order to remove him. Vulnerable Republicans facing tough re-election campaigns in 2020, including Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, were silent Wednesday. GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas — who is also facing re-election in a state where Republican domination may be slipping — called Sondland’s testimony “a nothing burger” and tweeted a link to polls showing impeachment was losing popularity.

Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Say Impeachment Hearings Won't Change Their Minds https://t.co/oZ6BGsjmJl — Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) November 20, 2019

In Wisconsin, which could decide the presidency next November, support for impeachment slipped in the first week of the Intelligence Committee’s hearings, to 40% from 44% in October, according to a Marquette University Law School poll. Survey Director Charles Franklin said that was largely due to Republicans and GOP-leaning independents rallying to support Trump.

“Impeachment doesn’t help with turnout,” said David McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University. “It’s helping with turning off voters.”

In the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, voters could hear the chief executives’ own voices — on tape — incriminate themselves. That is not the case here, McCuan said.

“And without that, you’re not going to move 20 Republicans in the Senate,” he said.

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who led the inquiry that resulted in Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, said on Fox News that “the record is muddy. The record is murky. ... One should not be talking about the impeachment of the president of the United States on a murky, disputed record that is subject to interpretation.”

Sondland testified Wednesday that he had worked with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to push for a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine at the “express direction” of the president.

He testified that “everyone was in the loop” on the Ukraine pressure campaign, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. “It was no secret,” he said.

But House Republicans and other conservatives emphasized something different. They seized on Sondland testifying that Trump told him, “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing,” a reference to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House, tweeted: “Gordon Sondland was clear: ‘I’ve never heard from President Trump that the aid (to Ukraine) was conditioned on the investigations.’ So what did @realDonaldTrump say when Sondland DID talk to him? Sondland, quoting POTUS: ‘I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.’”

That was also what Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs pointed to in trying to insulate Trump from political damage.

“What we’ve heard from Ambassador Sondland today is a lot of hearsay and opinion — he’s ‘presumed’ a lot,” Biggs tweeted. “The actual facts in evidence are that there was none of this quid pro quo or conditioning that the Democrats are desperately trying to contrive.”

Other conservatives, like Brent Bozell, the author of “Unmasked: Big Media’s War Against Trump,” tried to undercut Sondland. “Listen to Sondland and you’ll understand why America elected Donald Trump to get rid of people like Sondland,” he tweeted.

That doesn’t quite track, since Trump appointed Sondland to the EU ambassadorship after the hotel magnate donated $1 million to his inaugural ceremony committee. Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, whose mission is to “expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the left: the national news media,” later deleted the tweet.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli