If opposition parties had hoped that by positioning ‘Elbowgate’ as a gender issue they could make a dent in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s support among women, a new poll suggests they were wrong.

A new EKOS poll shows that Trudeau’s support among women has risen six per cent since a previous survey conducted in April, before the prime minister’s controversial elbowing of NDP Ruth Ellen Brosseau during a fracas on the floor of the House of Commons.

An equal percentage of men and women — 44 per cent — said that they would vote for the Liberal Party in a poll conducted April 14 and 15 of 1,176 Canadians. The margin of error for that poll was +/- 2.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

But in a second poll conducted between June 3 and 7, 2016, that number rose to 50 per cent of women surveyed who said they would vote Liberal if an election were held tomorrow, while the number of men who said so dropped to 40 per cent.

That poll surveyed 2,371 Canadians and has a margin of error of +/- 2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Trudeau accidentally elbowed Brosseau during a scuffle on the House of Commons floor ahead of a vote on assisted dying on May 18, prompting fellow NDPer Nikki Ashton to say, “It is very important that young women in this space feel safe to come here and work here.”

Another NDP MP, Brigitte Sansoucy, made a comparison to women who take shelter from “abusive husbands.”

Multiple editorials slammed the NDP for positioning the issue as a gendered one given the elbowing happened when Trudeau grabbed Conservative whip Gordon Brown from a small crowd of NDP MPs and tried to haul him to his seat ahead of the vote.

“I would say that Elbowgate certainly didn’t hurt him,” EKOS pollster Frank Graves told iPolitics.

Overall, vote intention for the other parties stayed relatively stable compared to the April results.

The Conservatives saw slight declines in the number of men and women surveyed for the June poll who said they would vote for the party, while the Green Party saw a four per cent increase in vote intention among men and one per cent among women.

The NDP got a one per cent boost among women in the June poll post-Elbowgate but the numbers stayed the same among men.

Despite the slight variations, the national vote intention landscape stayed pretty much the same, with 44.7 per cent of Canadians saying they would vote Liberal compared to 44.1 per cent in April.

Conservative support softened slightly from 28.5 per cent in April to 26.9 per cent in June, while NDP support increased from 12 per cent to 12.4 per cent, and Green Party support went from 6.7 per cent to 7.8 per cent.

Graves said he expects the support is likely a combination of enduring relief at the departure of former prime minister Stephen Harper and a willingness to trust the new government’s bold new vision.

Sixty-three per cent of respondents said they believe the government is operating under a “bold new vision” with 56 per cent saying that’s their preferred way for the government to operate.

Forty-four per cent said they would like to see a “careful, steady-as-she-goes” approach.

“This honeymoon … that’s not even the right term anymore,” Graves said. “It’s not running out anytime soon.”