Is this what you want in a President?

I have proposed that the style of the candidates was an important factor in the 2016 elections, especially in creating a large split by education.   By "the candidates," I mean especially Donald Trump, since Hillary Clinton was pretty conventional, but Trump was very different from any previous major-party nominee.  My idea was that education might influence people's ideas about what qualities were desirable or undesirable in a leader .  I had looked for questions on this topic without much success, but recently found a survey from March 2008.  This asked people to choose between alternatives, for example:  "would you prefer a president who makes decisions and then sticks with them no matter what, or a president who reconsiders decisions after making them when circumstances change?"  There was a substantial difference by education:  28% of people with high school or less and only 8% of college graduate said they preferred someone who stuck with decisions no matter what.  They also asked about someone "who gets involved in many of the details of most issues, or a president who sets broad policies and then delegates to others the implementation of these policies?"  Again, there was a substantial educational difference:  25% of people with high school or less and 52% of college graduate preferred someone who delegates.  There was also one about a choice between someone "who spends a lot of time thinking things through and deliberating before making decisions, or a president who makes decisions more quickly based on his or her gut instincts?"  There was an overwhelming preference for someone who thinks things through at all educational levels, but people with college education were a bit stronger in that direction. 

There was another question that turned out to be very relevant to the 2016 election "Which do you personally find more offensive--when people make negative comments about women in general, or when people make negative comments about African Americans in general, or don't remarks like that offend you? "  29% of people with high school or less and only 10% of college graduates said that they weren't offended by those comments.  So it seems that there is a substantial difference between what more and less educated people want in a leader, and that the Trump style was more appealing to less educated people. 

The survey also contained another question which wasn't relevant to what I was looking for, but was interesting "All other things being equal, would you rather vote for a man, rather vote for a woman, or wouldn't a candidate's gender make a difference to you?"  3% said they would rather vote for a woman, and 17% said they'd rather vote for a man.  Education made some difference, but even among college graduates 13% said they'd rather vote for a man and only 4% that they would rather vote for a woman.  Gender also made some difference, but among women it was still 16% for a man to 5% for a woman.  Age made a bigger difference, and so did region:  22% of people in the South and 8% of people in the Northeast said they would rather vote for a man.  Self-rated ideology made a big difference--conservatives said they would rather vote for a man by 30%-2%, liberals by 9%-6%. 

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]