Industrial Midwest states of Indiana and Michigan where Sanders won in primaries, similarly Iowa, Missouri and Illinois where Sanders came very close to winning, are possibly the furthest thing from being a "tree-hugging" country to be frank.

No doubt there are tons of "tree hugger" liberals who support him from all over the place but his chief /overarching message was economic populism encompassing trade, Wall Street, unions, social security etc that directly relate to jobs, economic and financial security of everyday people.

Ironically, Sanders lost the state by a fairly large margin (7 points) most widely and closely associated with "tree huggers" where, aside from being pioneer of the modern "tree huggers" social movement, it does have (possibly) the most extensive and the most stringent environment protection laws in the country. That is California.

Sanders never appeared on ads to promote environment protection with an actual "tree hugger" from "tree-hugging" country but guess who did ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154