Gingrich: Mitt can win over Hispanics

WASHINGTON, May 27 (UPI) -- Former U.S. presidential candidate Newt Gingrich predicted Sunday Mitt Romney would capture nearly half of the Latino vote in the November election.

Gingrich said President Obama was not necessarily attractive to Hispanics due to his failure to energize the overall economy and his failure to enact any significant immigration reforms.

"Barack Obama failed on immigration reform, even when he had a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate," Gingrich said on NBC's "Meet the Press. "So he is not in a very good position to say he'll fix it because he failed to fix it when he controlled the House and Senate."

Gingrich said that in his interactions with Hispanic business groups, he concluded Latino priorities were the same as the overall electorate: job, gasoline prices, education and housing.

"If Latinos conclude that Mitt Romney is more electable, will have my family have a job, he's more likely to bring down the price of gasoline, he's more likely to have my child have an effective education, does that overcome whatever the Democratic attack is?" Gingrich said. "And I think he'll get the same percent that George W. Bush did which was in the 40s."

Gingrich conceded that Romney has a tough road ahead in wooing Latino voters and will have to expend a good deal of campaign effort to do so.