Las Vegas Sol:

Obama stretches lead over Romney among Latinos

Friday, July 20, 2012 | 9:10 a.m.

Polling firm Latin Decisions released a new poll of Latino registered voters Wednesday indicating President Barack Obama has widened his lead over presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

After the president ramped up outreach to Latino voters, the poll found Obama has the support of 70 percent of Latino voters, compared to 22 percent for Romney. In June, polls showed Obama taking 66 percent of Latino voters, and as recently as November a poll found just 59 percent of Latinos supported Obama over any GOP nominee.

Obama recently announced his plan of deferred action for Dream Act eligible immigrants, which was widely popular among Latinos.

Additionally, the administration was successful in challenging three of four provisions of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, SB 1070 before the Supreme Court.

Obama spoke to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in late June, and earlier this month Vice President Joe Biden addressed the National Council of La Raza annual conference here in Las Vegas.

The poll found Obama’s lead to be consistent among all subsets of Latino voters.

Among foreign-born, naturalized citizens Obama leads 72 percent to 19 percent and among U.S.-born Latinos he leads 69 percent to 25 percent. Perhaps of particular concern to the Romney campaign, 13 percent of self-identified Latino Republicans said they would shrug off party lines and vote for Obama, and 60 percent of independents plan to vote for Obama. By comparison, 2 percent of Democrats say they plan to vote for Romney.

Latino Decisions polled 504 Latino registered voters across all 50 states between July 7 and 16.