Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans support House Jan. 6 committee

"House Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the select committee investigating last year's attack on the Capitol, but GOP voters are more supportive of the group's work," Politico reports, citing its Morning Consult poll released Sunday.

Forty percent of Republicans said they somewhat or strongly support the House Jan. 6 committee, while 44 percent disapprove and 16 percent expressed no opinion, the Politico/Morning Consult poll found. Overall, three-fifths of registered voters supported the committee, including 82 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of self-identified independents.

The Morning Consult poll also found that 62 percent of all voters, but only 43 percent of self-identified Republicans, correctly identified the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 as supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Nearly 40 percent of voters said the charges against the arrested rioters were not harsh enough, while 27 percent said they are about right and fewer than 20 percent said they were too harsh. The poll surveyed 2,000 registered voters Dec. 18-20, and its overall margin of error is ± 2 percentage points.

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Other recent polls highlighted Trump's success over the past year in persuading Republicans the Capitol insurrection was less serious than party leaders initially professed.

"A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 93 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents considered it an attack on the government, while only 29 percent of Republicans said the same," The Wall Street Journal notes. "A Pew Research Center poll showed a declining share of Republicans who believe it is important that rioters be prosecuted, with 57 percent expressing support in September, down from 79 percent in March."

Sunday's Politico Playbook highlighted some other "startling" new polls on the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A new Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, for example, found that while 60 percent of Americans say Trump bears a "great deal" or "good amount" of responsibility for the insurrections, 72 percent of Republicans say he bears "just some" or "none at all." An ABC/Ipsos poll found that 65 percent of Americans say President Biden's 2020 victory was legitimate, but 71 percent of Republicans say they believe Trump's false claim that he is the rightful winner. A CBS/YouGov poll, meanwhile, found that 12 percent of Americans, and a fifth of Trump 2020 voters, want Trump to fight to retake the presidency right now, with 4 percent of Americans saying he should use force if necessary.