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Ronald Reagan was popular nationwide during his presidency, and he seemed especially popular among men. Many women supported him too, but there were also a lot who opposed him. Even though Reagan won 58% of women in the 1984 election according to exit polls, I'm curious to see if there were any differences among women in terms of age.

Were younger women indeed more critical of Reagan during his presidency than older women were?

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  • Very good question. Voter demographic breakdowns are spot on target and gender-based is as well: did pol X shoot for soccer moms? A companion question would be: did women, and if so in what demographics, help elect Kennedy? Women may or may not feel attraction to either figures, but their presidencies were both characterized with Cold War escalation, which voters must have seen coming. Women have a different perspective to men wrt saber rattling. Plus: its very interesting what resources, either way, can be cited from high-interest, pre-digital, political post-event talking heads.
    – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
    Commented Feb 11 at 7:31
  • I can find evidence that older people were more likely to support Reagan (ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-1980). So there were differences between older and younger women, but so too with men, and I suspect that any differences between older and younger women is fully explained by the difference between older and younger people.
    – James K
    Commented Feb 11 at 16:31
  • So, to clarify, could you accept an answer that said "Yes, there were differences between younger and older women. But there were also differences between younger and older men, and there was no significant difference between the sexes."
    – James K
    Commented Feb 12 at 8:05
  • Yeah, I think I could accept an answer like that!
    – Catmix
    Commented Feb 12 at 8:37
  • This might be more appropriate for the History SE.
    – Allure
    Commented Feb 14 at 8:46

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Yes, polls from the time indicated a general age-divide in US society. Older voters (both men and women). And it is the expected one, older voters tend to favour conservative parties and candidates. Younger voters tend to favour progressive candidates. Reagan, a conservative, tended to get more votes from older voters.

This was true in both male and female demographics. Older women were more likely to support Reagan, but there isn't evidence that the differences between young and older women are any greater than the differences between young and older men.

Younger women tended to be more critical of Reagan, but so were younger men.

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