The Hill reports that share is 7% more than John McCain got in 2008, but still below the 40% grabbed by George W. Bush in 2004. Getting to that number could be difficult as recent polls show Romney barely above 20% among Latino voters.
While Romney has softened his rhetoric on illegal immigration since he ran hard to the right on the issue during the primary, and polls show Latino support for President Obama is soft, there have been no indications that Romney has made up any ground with the key voting bloc in recent months. That's a worrisome sign for a candidate who admitted at an April fundraising event that his campaign was “doomed” if he didn’t improve his standing with Latino voters.
Romney's party isn't helping him. On Tuesday, the GOP platform committee added tough language to the official party position that says laws like Arizona's tough measure should be "encouraged, not attacked."
Romney has already surpassed McCain in terms of Hispanic outreach — bilingual phone banks run by his campaign and the Republican National Committee have so far made more than 10 million voter contacts, according to a GOP source. But Obama’s campaign has also been heavily targeting Latino voters, and outspent Romney by a wide margin this summer on Spanish-language television and radio.
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