It is media perception, but the campaigns themselves had a hand in the narratives. Gore (St. Alban's) and Bush (Exeter) were exactly the same social class, but Bush pulled off a more deliberate man of the people routine. Kerry went to prep school Yale, was in Skull and Bones, and is related to every Boston Brahmin. Btw-all those things could be said about W, too. But people just had this idea that W was a simple rancher while Kerry was a windsurfing Francophile. People make this big deal about voters smelling inauthenticity, but Kerry presented his authentic self while Bush playacted being the village idiot from his own Petit Trianon in Crawford. It turns out that (mostly GOP) voters don't really want authenticity, they just like candidates who either are truly idiots or play them on TV. There is a sweet spot of lovable Bertie Wooster idiocy in the upper classes that Bush may have benefited from.
Mitt Romney is an interesting case, and I think his loss is similar to Bush-Kerry, Bush-Gore, Clinton-Dole, and Trump-Clinton. He seemed stiffer and more reserved, and it's hard to get voters excited about the more reserved candidate. Stiffness and reserve, of course, being markers for social class.
Anyway-this is off topic even for off topic. I'd certainly trade Ivanka for her dad. She's an order of magnitude smarter (then again, so is any random checker at Target), but I think that the GOP should be setting its sights on Nikki Haley. Btw-I think Elizabeth Warren is a capable and smart woman, but she would be defeated in a blood bath for all the reasons I discussed. She's like everyone's favorite English teacher, and way too upper middle class of an authority figure to win an election outside of Massachusetts. Plus, every Bernie Bro who pretends that they would vote for Warren and they had special reasons that were definitely Not Sexism for not voting for Clinton will suddenly discover new and also Not Sexist reasons for not voting for Warren. Biden is the way to go. He's a brawler. You know who is the most loathsome upper middle class GOP politician? Paul Ryan. Remember his black hole of charisma during the Biden-Ryan debates?