Did the confrontation with the reporter help or hurt gianforte win the montana special election?

i'm dipping my toe into a political discussion here since i know many people from both sides of the issue have opinions. my take is first of all, 2/3rds of the mail-in ballots were already voted, and as expected gianforte won. he has since apologized for this confrontation with the reporter in his victory speech. but, there are indications that for those who did vote at the polls after this incident, it may have actually GAINED VOTES and at worse just was a wash in the voting, not hurting or benefiting him. i have heard both sides that this reporter was uninvited and aggressively questioned gianforte at his private campaign headquarters on the one hand and on the other that it was just a simple political question like any other and did not deserve such an emotional response from gianforte(hence he apologized.) my view is that reporters are overly aggressive and biased(both sides) depending on which news stations you watch. it is this reporter BIAS that is the reason i think that the confrontation HELPED GIANFORTE. some of the extreme views on both sides are that the reporter was trespassing uninvited and based on stand your ground rights if montana had concealed gun licensing that he could have shot and killed the reporter and been perfectly within his rights. obviously the alternative is that he committed a felony in his assault of the reporter. i think the answer lies somewhere between these two views. what do you think?