NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 01: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends a round table conversation and press conference announcing a childhood development initiative with first lady of New York City Chirlane McCray on April 1, 2015 in New York City. The initiative is between New York City Children's Cabinet and Too Small to Fail. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images) (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

By Christy Strawser

DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Her husband was colloquially called the “first black president” and started his Oval Office years with deep support in Detroit and overall in Michigan.

But will Hillary Clinton win hearts and minds the same way in the 2016 presidential race?

A Wall Street Journal poll Tuesday found 75 percent of Democratic primary voters support Hillary Clinton. Her next closest challenger in this poll was Bernie Sanders, who garnered only 15 percent.

On the other side, Jeb Bush is the favored Republican, but by a much slimmer margin. Bush is the preference for 22 percent of Republican voters, with Scott Walker second at 17 percent.

Clinton officially announced her candidacy last week, revealing what many consider a liberal agenda focused on building an inclusive economy by bridging the economic inequality gap. She has come out in support of things that have galvanized some Detroiters, including the call for $15-an-hour wages for fast food workers.

Dave Dulio, chair of Oakland University’s political science department and an election expert, says it’s too early to tell how Clinton will fare in the largely Democratic, heavily African American community in Detroit.

But early signs weren’t necessarily favorable.

“Given that she has 100 percent name recognition, she ought to have a dominant lead, I’ve tested her several times and each time … she was under 50 percent (in Michigan),” said pollster Steve Mitchell, president of Metro Research and Communication in Detroit.

The most recent statewide data he has seen was focused on favorably vs. unfavorability for leading candidates, Dulio said, and that didn’t look good for Clinton either.

“The general takeaway is that more people in Michigan have an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton than have a favorable view,” Dulio reported.

The poll produced last week by Glengariff Group found Clinton had a 47 percent unfavorable rank vs. 39.3 percent for favorable, Dulio said.

The second piece of the poll found 86 percent of Michiganders have already formed an opinion on Hillary Clinton — which to Dulio is the most damaging part.

“That doesn’t give her much room to improve,” he said. “She’s going to have to turn those unfavorable views around.”

The Clintons’ longtime support of unions might help them less in Detroit than some observers might guess, added Wayne State University Political Science Professor Marjorie Sarbaugh-Thompson. Traditionally a blue-collar, heavily unionized state, Michigan’s union membership dropped in 2014 from 16.3 percent to 14.5 percent in the wake of right to work legislation.

“We found less union support in Detroit than I would have expected,” Sarbaugh-Thompson said of recent canvassing work.

“This could affect turnout in Detroit, which is always important for Democratic candidates,” she added. So the question is not whether Clinton or any other Democrat will win in Detroit, but what proportion of voters will show up. And that’s hard to know this early.

The latest numbers could be easier for Republican challengers like Rand Paul or Marco Rubio, who have lower favorability ratings as well, but also fewer people who have already formed an opinion, Dulio said.

Almost 55 percent had no opinion of Rubio in the statewide poll, Dulio said.

“Definitely to turn opinion (is more difficult),” Dulio said. “They already know what they think about somebody, so moving somebody off of that firmly held belief is often more difficult than somebody who is under informed, where they can accept new information.”

Here’s the nut of it for the Clinton vote: “Detroit is a Democratic town and that’s not going to change, but the question is — at least the next question is — which Democrat are they going to support?” Dulio said.

It’s too early to make any definitive predictions, he said.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated — well, a non-named person in the Wayne County primary where Detroit is the largest city. The vote was 48.9 percent for Clinton to 45 percent for “uncommitted.”

It was a complicated year that had Michigan facing sanctions for holding its primary early to try to compete with Iowa and New Hampshire. Following the state’s breach of Democratic party rules, Barack Obama withdrew his name from the primary, leaving big-name Hillary Clinton to face “uncommitted,” write ins and a few others with very little presidential support.

And it was still close.

“Will that support for her remain soft this time — Or will it solidify for her?” Dulio said. “My guess is that it will, but we just don’t know that yet.”

In the next election in 2012, Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney in Michigan by a 9.5 percent margin, 54 percent to 45 percent. In Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Obama won 73 percent to Romney’s 26 percent.

Can Clinton duplicate those numbers?

“She’s soft in Michigan,” Mitchell said. “All that polling shows her under 50 percent, in the mid-40s, against a couple of different candidates, I was surprised at how soft she was.”