In Bernie Sanders's campaign for president, he focused on economic issues. One thing that I found strange following his style of campaigning is that he seemed to try to reach out to social conservatives in a way.
What I mean is that his campaign focused on the working class, which seems to be a euphemism for individuals without college education or also lower-income individuals. People who are in "the working class" tend to be more conservative than educated people in many countries including the United States.
In 2016, the "working class" strategy Sanders employed seemed successful. He got big wins in the primary against Clinton (and Biden to an extent in 2020) in working class areas that Trump did better than Romney in 2016 or even 2020 (in Mexican-American areas such as South Texas).
This begs the question of if Bernie's supporters included more social conservatives and Trump voters, especially Obama-Trump voters. It is not implausible that some social conservatives were put off by his left-wing base and talking points but were pleased by his economic stances; and on the other side many college educated social liberals felt that Sanders' ideas were impractical or wasn't loyal enough to the Democratic Party but liked his talking points. It's not implausible given that ideology doesn't usually function on one dimension.
1: Were Bernie Sanders's supporters more likely to identify as conservative than Democratic presidential primary voters overall in 2016 and 2020? 2: Were there a disproportionate number of Sanders-Trump voters compared to Clinton-Trump voters and other recent presidential primaries?