Poll: Obama leads Romney by 50 points among Latinos

President Obama has opened up a 50-point lead among Latino voters, a commanding lead among the fastest-growing ethnic group in the American electorate.

According to a new survey from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, Obama bests Republican challenger Mitt Romney 70-20 percent among registered Latino voters. And the president preserves that lead among likely Latino voters, ahead in that survey 71-21 percent.

That represents an increase of 15 points since August for Obama, and comes despite Mitt Romney's attempts of late to attract Latino voters. The Republican candidate in recent weeks granted interviews to Univision and Telemundo, appeared at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and began airing a new swing of Spanish-language radio ads.

Romney's deficit also now stands 15 points greater than the one posted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against President Obama in the 2008 campaign. Romney's struggle with personal favorability seems particularly dramatic among Hispanics, where 53 percent say they hold a negative opinion of the candidate, versus 23 percent who see him favorably.

It also appears Romney's outreach attempts have backfired. More than six in 10 Latinos say what they've heard about Romney in the last couple of weeks gives them a less favorable opinion of the candidate.

Still, there is evidence Romney is trying to chip away at Obama's advantage. On Monday, Romney said that illegal immigrants who receive temporary work permits because of the recent policy change by President Obama would be allowed to keep them under a Romney administration.

"The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid. I'm not going to take something that they've purchased," Romney told the Denver Post in an interview. "Before those visas have expired we will have the full immigration reform plan that I've proposed."

Earlier this year, the president issued an executive order that halted deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and who graduated from high school and avoided arrest.

Romney had not said before what he would do about the president's executive order, saying simply that he would work for a comprehensive and long-term immigration solution.

He reiterated that position Monday in his interview with the Post.

"I actually will propose a piece of legislation which will reform our immigration system to improve legal immigration so people don't have to hire lawyers to figure out how to get here legally," Romney said. "The president promised in his first year, his highest priority, that he would reform immigration, and he didn't. And I will."

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