Older Turks would support Ataturk, not Erdogan. So they are smarter, right?
It's far more complicated than that. When there is no real, strong, united opposition votes get divided as you'd guess. But then we don't have just two strong parties to vote for. So it cahnges. There is a barrier here. A party has to pass 10% with votes to get in the parliament.
People vote with strategy over here. For example, millions of Turks vote/voted for the Kurdish party, actually how the party entered the parliament to begin with. Against him and his wing party (far right), so they wouldn't get the most seats. Last elections it was 5,5 million I guess. First time it was 9 or something like that? Voter turnout is around 87-90 %. But then millions of Kurds vote for Erdogan. That's freaking Middle East for ya.
This is something like having an all minority party -an all mexican party?- in the US; in senate and around 20 millions of Americans voting for it, against Trump and Republicans. It makes around 20 million right? I am a math moron.