According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll, President Obama is currently leading Mitt Romney among Latino voters by 45 percent.
Obama leads Romney 70 percent to 25 percent among likely Latino voters (and 69 percent to 23 percent among registered voters), a slight uptick for Romney from the 70 percent to 25 percent lead the president held a month ago. [...]
More Hispanics than last month said they are either a 9 or 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest) on a measure of their enthusiasm for this election. Sixty-eight percent of likely Latino voters rated their enthusiasm at that level, up from 59 percent last month. But that is off from the 76 percent who said they were in that highest-interest group at this time four years ago. And it is below the 76 percent who are 9s and 10s in the wider NBC/WSJ poll. [...]
The debates appear to have had little impact with Latinos in the poll, which was conducted entirely after the second presidential debate. Just 14 percent said they are now more likely to vote for Romney while 48 percent said it made them more likely to vote for Obama, and 35 percent said it made no difference.
At this point it's not news that Latino voters prefer President Obama over Mitt Romney, however what you can take away from this is that Romney's mad dash to the center, his attempt to distance himself from Kris Kobach, the father of "Papers Please," and his pitch on immigration during the second presidential debate has failed to make a serious impact.
Are Republicans worried about their chances in future elections if they're losing the Latino vote by such a wide margin? A Republican path to electoral victory is more precarious if Arizona becomes a swing state and Nevada is out of their reach.
By the way, if a 10 point number scale is what we're using to judge "likely voters," I think we need a new metric.