Describe a Ted Kennedy primary-Reagan general election voter (for 1980 Presidential)

[darklordoftech]

?

[Blair]

Wasn't this found to be about 20% of the Kennedy vote?

Ted's 1980 campaign always seemed like a last hurrah coalition between New Frontier Liberals, some of the New Deal Coalition (specifically union workers, Irish-Americans etc) & democrats who didn't like Carter- I imagine Reagan ate quite heavily into the last two.

[LM Brazilian Citizen]

A New Dealer voter in social issues and fiercely anticommunist in foreign policy.

[I’m not Stu]

An ancestral Southern Democrat who protest voted in the Democratic primary.

[Motorcity]

An ancestral Southern Democrat who protest voted in the Democratic primary.

Ancestral Democrats were the last to leave Carter. Reagan's worst states were like Tennessee in 1980

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Probably a lot more of them then there were Bernie-Trump voters in 2016.

[TheReckoning]

A Democrat who thought the Carter presidency was disastrous and thus defected to Reagan.

[H. Ross Peron]

Irish-American small business owner or white-collar worker who was a registered Democrat and admired the Kennedys.

[Podgy the Bear]

Many Kennedy voters probably moved to Anderson, but there were enough of them to vote Reagan and to tip MA and NY in his direction.    The antagonism between Carter and Kennedy was palpable, and it showed throughout 1979 and 1980.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

Kennedy was almost certainly a magnet for anti-Carter protest votes, just as Sanders was for anti-Clinton ones in 2016. There's also a certain kind of Democrat holding the Kennedys in reverence whilst don't necessarily always being loyal to the Democratic Party.