Romney campaign hits Obama on Hispanic unemployment rate

Mitt Romney's campaign is seeking to pin blame on President Obama for the high unemployment rate among Hispanics.

"Under President Obama, more Hispanics have struggled to find work than at any other time on record," the campaign said in a statement on Friday.

The release notes an increase in the Hispanic unemployment rate from 10 percent in January 2009, when Obama took office, to 10.3 percent last month.

The campaign also notes a drop in the median household income for Hispanics from 2008 to 2010 and an increase in the poverty rate.

Romney badly trails Obama among Latino voters: A recent poll from the Pew Research Center showed Obama leading Romney by 67 to 27 percent with Hispanics, a gap that is slightly wider than the one Obama had over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008. That gap likely cost McCain a number of states in the West, including Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, and hurt him in Florida and Virginia, two other states Obama carried.

The former Massachusetts governor ran hard to the right on immigration issues in the primary. He recently was overheard at a private event saying his current numbers with Hispanics "spell doom" for his electoral chances if he can't improve them, and recently brought on former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, an expert on Hispanic politics and centrist on immigration, as a top adviser.

Romney's campaign responded with a similar series of statistics about Obama's economic record and female voters following his campaign's attacks on social issues.