And as NPR's "Morning Edition" found out last year, some of Bernie's biggest fans are in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the poorest and most conservative part of the state.
It's people from the Northeast Kingdom who've overwhelmingly elected Bernie to almost 20 years in Congress and two straight terms as senator, and it's people like them in the rest of the country who will probably send Bernie to the White House if he gets the Democratic nomination for president.
So why is that?
Why is Bernie Sanders, a socialist, so popular with people who should hate "socialism?"
The answer is pretty simple.
While Americans disagree on social issues like gay marriage and abortion, they're actually pretty unified on the bread and butter economic issues that Bernie has made the core of his campaign.
In fact, a recent poll by the Progressive Change Institute, shows that Americans overwhelmingly agree with Bernie on key issues like education, health care and the economy.
Like Bernie, 75 percent of Americans poll support fair trade that "protects workers, the environment and jobs."
Seventy-one percent support giving all students access to a debt-free college education.
Seventy-one percent support a massive infrastructure spending program aimed at rebuilding our broken roads and bridges, and putting people back to work.
Seventy percent support expanding Social Security.
Fifty-nine percent support raising taxes on the wealthy so that millionaires pay the same amount in taxes as they did during the Reagan administration.
Fifty-eight percent support breaking up the big banks.
Fifty-five percent support a financial transaction or Robin Hood tax.
Fifty-one percent support single payer health care, and so and so on.
Pretty impressive, right?
And here's the thing - supporting Social Security, free college, breaking up the big banks, aren't "progressive" policies, they're just common sense, and 60 years ago they would have put Bernie Sanders smack dab in the mainstream of my father's Republican Party.