My guess is that wealthy, college-educated Republicans also preferred Bush41 over Reagan in 1978.
If you go back and examine the press of the day, you will find that you are right. Remember, Bush ‘41 was running against Reagan in the primaries leading up to the ‘80 election, he won Iowa, lost NH (probably as a result of walking out on the debate) and lost the rest of the primaries.
The politics inside the GOP during the ‘80 election are coming back today. Back then, the oh-so-terribly-smart Ivy League types thought that Reagan was a “cowboy” and was about to start a war with the Russians because he was so ‘stupid’ and ‘without nuance.’ There was a widespread meme, spread in part by the blue bloods, that Reagan was overly simplistic and a rube on international affairs.
For those of us with a memory, the pattern repeats. Sadly for the “wealthy, college educated Republicans,” (of which I could be counted, if I weren’t such a gun-toting redneck, I suppose), their track record in the Bush ‘41 and Bush ‘43 administrations is miserable. Bush ‘41 got us into Iraq the first time, and didn’t finish the job. Bush ‘43 gets us back into Iraq, and doesn’t finish the job - again. We get into Afghanistan for good measure, a bottomless pit of dark ages non-thinking into which we cannot impose modern civilization without about 200 years of forced learning.
Then for good measure, we have the financial and fiscal records of the two Bush administrations is perfectly horrible. Bush ‘43 fired two perfectly competent SecTreas guys who wouldn’t blow sunshine up his backside, and replaces them with another Ivy League grifter and thief writ most large, who perpetrates the single largest theft in the history of mankind.
If this is what we have to look forward to if we elect another oh-so-terribly-smart Ivy League grad, count me out. I’d vote for Howdy Doody before I vote for another idiot with a Harvard degree.
About all I want in a president at this point is someone with enough common sense to know the difference between their ass and a warm rock. That seems to be a quality completely lacking in the candidates in both parties.