ATTENTION MUST ALWAYS BE PAID PRIMARILY TO REPUBLICANS

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but my takeaway from NPR's write-up of its latest poll is that NPR believes the opinions of Republicans matter more than what the rest of us think, or what the country overall thinks.

Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided on how they see special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to President Trump's campaign, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

Overall, the former FBI director's favorability ratings have dropped over the past month as Trump and other Republicans have ratcheted up their attacks on Mueller and his ongoing probe. There's been a net-negative swing of 11 points over the past month, with 32 percent of all Americans holding a favorable view toward Mueller, 30 percent viewing him unfavorably, and a 38 percent plurality still not knowing enough to have an opinion.

Among Democrats, though, Mueller's favorability is at 56 percent, with just 19 percent viewing him unfavorably and a quarter unsure. But nearly half of all Republicans hold an unfavorable view of the Justice Department special counsel — up from 30 percent last month — with only 16 percent viewing him favorably and another 35 percent undecided.

But these numbers aren't a huge swing if you look back a few months. Right now, Mueller's favorable/unfavorable numbers are 32%-30%; in January, they were 29%/29%. So they've improved slightly since then. The numbers weren't very different in February (33%/27%). March's numbers seem anomalous (33%/20%). But in every poll, the largest group is respondents is the "unsure" group, and the disapprovers are very much in the minority.

A 45 percent plurality of all Americans believe Mueller's investigation is fair — a seven-point net drop from March — while 30 percent believe it is unfair and just over a quarter are undecided.

But again, the Mueller probe is being seen through an increasingly partisan lens by Americans. For the first time, a majority (55 percent) of Republicans say his investigation is unfair, with just 22 percent calling it fair — which is a 17 point swing since last month. Almost three-fourths of Democrats say Mueller's investigation is being handled fairly, a five-point net uptick since last month, along with almost half of independents — though there's a nine-point net drop.

But again, the Americans who think the probe is unfair are a minority -- 30%.

Even with GOP frustrations, a majority of Republicans (56 percent) say Mueller should be allowed to finish his investigation, while almost a quarter think he should be fired and 20 percent are undecided. Among all adults polled, 65 percent say Mueller should be retained, 15 percent want him terminated, and 20 percent aren't sure.

The key statistic here is that "let Mueller finish" beats "dump Mueller" by 50 points -- but to NPR the key question seems to be "What do Republicans think?" As it turns out, even they want Mueller to finish. So efforts by the White House and right-wing media to tarnish the investigation aren't really working. Why isn't that even part of NPR's lede?

There have also been big changes in how the public views the FBI — driven by a surge in Republican distrust, the poll shows....

Overall, there's been an 18-point increase in Americans who believe the FBI is biased against Trump in the past two months. This month, 61 percent said that the FBI was just trying to do its job while 31 percent said they believed the nation's chief law enforcement arm was biased against the Trump administration. Back in February, 71 percent of Americans polled said they believed the FBI was acting within its bounds, while 23 percent thought the agency was biased against the GOP White House.

That swing has been due to rising Republican anger. For the first time, a 56-percent majority of Republicans say the FBI is biased against the president, with just 34 percent saying it's only doing its job. That's a 16-point swing against the FBI among the GOP, when just fewer than half of Republicans said in February that the FBI was biased but 43 percent still thought it was doing its job.

Actually, there hasn't "been an 18-point increase in Americans who believe the FBI is biased against Trump' -- there's been an 18-point swing in net belief in NPR bias. And the important thing to note is that Americans overwhelmingly believe the FBI is doing the right thing.

There's still support for Mueller's work. That's the bottom line. There's fear of Russian interference in the 2018 elections -- we're told that "55 percent" of respondents "say Russian interference come November is likely or very likely," but "Republicans overwhelmingly don't believe that is a possibility." The message of the numbers is that the delegitimization of Mueller hasn't succeeded -- but that's not what NPR tells us.