There’s always a “but.”

Still, this result is encouraging, especially since the dispute between Trump and Pence over whether the VP had the power to block certification of Biden’s victory has been in the news lately. Asked to choose between the most powerful man in the party and a guy whom some rioters were looking to hang on January 6 for his alleged complicity in allowing “the steal” to occur, most Republicans side with … Pence.

The way YouGov worded the question is noteworthy: “As you may know, on January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence followed the procedure described in the Constitution for opening and counting the states’ 2020 presidential electoral votes in Congress. Do you approve or disapprove of Mike Pence doing this?” That preface loaded the dice somewhat by referencing the Constitution, something most Americans agree should always be followed. Would a less biased question — “Did Mike Pence do the right thing by certifying Joe Biden’s victory on January 6?” — have drawn the same level of Republican support?

Here’s a clue from another question in the same poll. Quote: “Do you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump pressuring Mike Pence to try to overturn the 2020 election?”

Note the phrasing of that question too. YouGov didn’t adopt the Trumpy framing in which Trump was the true winner on Election Day and January 6 was about righting a terrible wrong. They explicitly presented Trump’s efforts as aimed at “overturning” the election. And they still got a nearly even split among Republicans on whether Trump was right to try it.

That’s the “but” in the headline. It’s nice to know that two-thirds of Republicans support Pence’s refusal to overturn the election but a third think he should have done it and around half think Trump was right to lean on him. I’m dying to know who the people are who approve of Trump pressuring him but also approve of Pence resisting that pressure.

Per CNN, Pence was reportedly cheered by the outpouring of support he got privately (always privately) from Republican politicians after he declared in his Federalist Society speech that Trump was wrong:

In the hours after his stunning rebuke of his onetime running mate, Pence fielded calls from donors, Republican lawmakers and top conservative leaders eager to privately applaud him…

Those familiar with Pence’s thinking say the outpouring of support that he’s seen since taking on Trump by name — both in gushing op-eds by conservative media outlets and in private conversations with GOP donors and fellow Republicans — has emboldened him as he looks to chart a future in politics that could include a White House bid against his former boss in 2024. At the same time, it also underscores the degree to which many Republicans are still unwilling to bat down Trump’s lies about the 2020 election in public — instead choosing to privately praise those who do so — even when there could be an upside to telling the truth. Although the GOP remains Trump’s party, those around Pence see his distinctions from Trump as an asset.

Eh, they shouldn’t see them as too much of an asset. The YouGov poll found that 69 percent of Republicans want Trump to run again in 2024, with 70 percent of the party agreeing that he’s the best candidate Republicans have(!). And 52 percent say those whom the GOP views as “disloyal” to Trump should either be punished immediately, a la Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, or primaried in their next election. That doesn’t bode well for Pence in a future presidential run, seeing as how he’s guilty of the greatest “disloyalty” of all.

Neither does the fact that 61 percent of Republicans agree with Trump that the people who forced their way into the Capitol should be pardoned. Imagine Mike Pence leading a party that wants the rioters who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” while fighting with cops to receive executive clemency.

But here’s a number that might encourage him. YouGov asked people whether they like hearing political leaders still talking about the 2020 election. Result:

Not even a third of Republicans want to look backward rather than forward. That was my theory in yesterday’s post for how Trump’s grip on the party might *eventually* slip, that he simply won’t be able to shake his personal obsession with the idea that he was cheated while most members of his party are focused on ousting Democrats this November. Republican voters, including most MAGAs, are first and foremost “Never Democrats” and secondarily “Always Trump.” For Trump, it’s the opposite. That may become a liability to him as cannier politicians like Ron DeSantis establish themselves as more effective “Never Democrats” messengers.

I’ll give you one more number from the poll that made me laugh. Question: “In future elections, would you prefer Republicans be similar or different from Donald Trump in their views of coronavirus vaccines?”

Trump is vocally pro-vaccine, of course, something that’s gotten him into trouble with parts of his own base. Since vaccine uptake is much higher among Democrats than Republicans, we’d expect the data here to be a rare case in which Dems are strongly pro-Trump while Republicans are more mixed. That’s … not the data we see. My guess is that this result is a combination of most people having no idea what Trump’s vaccine position is (it’s not like he’s made a consistent effort for months to advertise it, after all) and responding instinctively to literally any question about Trump along partisan lines. Ask Democrats anything about Trump and they’ll reflexively take the “Trump bad!” position. Ask Republicans and they’ll reflexively say “Trump good!” So it goes, even with vaccination.