I’m as surprised as you are. How is this number not a clear majority?

A rare moment of semi-consensus between Trumpers and fans of Green Party oddity Jill Stein. Don’t ask me why they specified “Republican politicians” in the question instead of using “politicians” generally. Presumably it’s because this comes from (who else?) the left-leaning troll-poll maestros at PPP, who knew that if they tilted the question in a partisan way they’d be more likely to get Trump voters and Republicans answering yes to violence.

PPP also dug into the numbers on Comey and Trump. Hey, remember when Comey’s name was a curse word for months among Democrats on the not-implausible theory that his last-minute letter about reopening the email investigation had cost her the presidency? All is forgiven, my friends, now that he’s Trump enemy number one:

Overall, when asked whether they trust Comey more or Trump more, the public splits 51/39. Democrats (83/9) and Republicans (13/78) are basically mirror images of each other; Comey prevails because independents trust him more, 49/35.

One more oddball result, again having to do with Russia:

A plurality of Republican voters think Russia was trying to help Hillary, whom Putin famously loathes and whose surrogates at the DNC and in John Podesta’s office were targeted with hacks, instead of Trump? If you were Putin, whom would you prefer — the hawkish Democrat who questioned the legitimacy of Russia’s elections in 2011 or the NATO skeptic who was prone to answering questions about Putin murdering journalists by noting that the U.S. does lots of bad stuff too? I can understand being agnostic on this question on grounds that Putin prizes chaos and distrust in democratic institutions above any particular electoral outcome, but if you’re going to choose one or the other, why not choose the candidate whom the entire U.S. natsec community claims Putin was trying to help? Trump shouldn’t take comfort in his party’s division on this question either. On the much more important political question of whether he should resign if any members of his campaign team — not him personally, just his associates — are found to have colluded with Russia during the campaign, 54 percent say he should. Among indies it’s 51 percent, with even 18 percent of Republicans agreeing. If Bob Mueller nails Paul Manafort for collusion, Trump’s going to have a major political problem even if he’s not charged with anything himself.

A hopeful note in closing: Partisan opinion on Russia and Putin, which had been diverging after the election, is back in line despite Trump’s continued hopes for some sort of diplomatic reset with Moscow. Among Democrats, Putin’s favorability is 4/81. Among Republicans, it’s not much better at 11/70.