Trump's base is rallying in support of his controversial decision to fire James Comey

A new poll shows that party affiliation has a significant bearing on how voters view President Donald Trump's recent firing of FBI Director James Comey.

The Morning Consult/Politico poll, conducted between May 9 and 11, found that 62% of Republicans and 16% of Democrats think Trump was right to remove the director of the nation's top law enforcement agency.

In a previous poll conducted in mid-April, Republicans were much less in favor of the potential firing, while Democrats were slightly more supportive than they are now. In April, 31% of Republican voters, and 22% of Democrats, believed Comey should lose his job.

All respondents - Democrats, Republicans, and independents - were more likely to say Trump's decision was inappropriate after they were informed of the FBI's ongoing investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

After being told of Comey's controversial handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server, 47% of all voters - 70% of Republicans and 29% of Democrats - thought it was appropriate to fire him.

The May poll had just over 1,700 respondents and the April survey polled almost 2,000 voters. Both polls have a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.