Mitt Romney: Hispanic Voters Could be Troublesome for Nation

The GOP presidential nominee's campaign is in full crisis mode.

Mitt Romney, at a fundraiser held at the Boca Raton home of controversial private equity manager Marc Leder on May 17, said that the Republican party and the nation will be in trouble if the Hispanic voters become committed to Democrats.

"We are having a much harder time with Hispanic voters, and if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting block has in the past, why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation," Romney told the wealthy voters.

Romney went further to say that if his father, who was born in Mexico to American parents, had been born of Mexican parents, he would have a better shot of winning the presidency on Nov. 6.

The released tapes came just hours after Romney spoke with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, trying to connect with Latino voting base. His appearance, though, came with much resistance.

Latino elected officials from Los Angeles and around California held a counter press conference in downtown LA to show their support for President Barack Obama.

"You know, this isn't Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's only attempt to turn back the clock and change the way Americans and Latinos perceive their bad policies, and this wont be the last time," state Sen. Alex Padilla said. "Latinos stand to lose the most from Romney's insistence on the same failed economic policies that brought our economy to the brink of collapse, his $5 trillion in tax breaks weighted to the wealthiest Americans, and his belief that we should let foreclosures 'hit the bottom.'

In anticipation of Romney's speech, the Obama campaign also released a videomocking the Republican candidate's Latino outreach as an "extreme makeover."

Obama's Hispanic support has risen to 68 percent compared with Romney's 26 percent, following both candidate's recently concluded conventions.

In the 2008 presidential elections, Sen. John McCain got an estimated 31 percent of the Latino vote when he lost to Obama. George W. Bush won with 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000 and 40 percent in 2004. A Romney strategist has said the Republican will need to pick up 38 percent to win.

In November, Latino Voters will be a major force in deciding who will be the next President of the United States.

About 9.7 million Hispanics cast ballots in the November 2008 election that brought Barack Obama to theWhite House, compared with 7.6 million who did so in 2004, according to a 2011 study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.

In the 2012 election, the Latino vote is anticipated to increase by 26 percent to 12.2 million voters, or 8.7 percent of the country's total.

The Census Bureau said in March that there were 50.5 million Hispanics in the United States in 2010 - that equates to one in every six Americans - and they contributed to more than half the country's population growth.