WASHINGTON – Barack Obama and his vice president and running mate, Joe Biden, would receive the support of a robust 63% of Hispanic voters compared with 28% who would vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan if the election were held today, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

Despite the notable difference, the Democratic candidate over the past month dropped 4 points in support among Latino voters, while the Republican increased by 5 points, according to the poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal, along with Telemundo and NBC News.

Obama is maintaining his popularity among the Hispanic community, which represents 11 percent of the country’s registered voters, while Romney has seen both the percentage of his supporters as well as his detractors grow during the past month.

Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed hold a positive opinion of Obama and 19 percent view him negatively, while Romney is viewed positively by 31 percent and negatively by 48 percent of Hispanic voters.

The Republican vice presidential candidate, Ryan, is not well-known among Hispanics, with 27 percent not knowing who he is, and those who do know who he is are split almost evenly in their view of him.

After Romney presented him on Aug. 11 as his running mate, Ryan was found to be liked by 26 percent of Latino voters and disliked by 27 percent.

His Democratic counterpart, Biden, enjoys a favorable opinion among 43 percent of Hispanic voters and is unfavorably viewed by 23 percent.

There is no political area in which Hispanics believe that Romney would be a better choice than Obama.

A comfortable majority of Hispanics feel that Obama is a politician who is concerned about the well-being of regular people (64 percent), who is in favor of transparency (60 percent), who has presidential qualities (59 percent) and who deals with crises well (58 percent).

Although he trails Obama, Romney does best regarding his ability to improve the economy (31 percent), his organizational skills (30 percent) and the possibility that he will reform the way politicians work in the U.S. capital (27 percent).

Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said that they feel the economy, which is pointed to as a key issue in the election campaign, is recovering.

Specifically, 44 percent believe that the economy will improve over the next 12 months, 38 percent think it will stay the same and 15 percent believe it will worsen.

Regarding the performance in office by Obama and his administration, six out of 10 people surveyed approve of the president’s efforts in economic matters and foreign policy.

The presidential race this year interests Latinos less than the 2008 race, the survey found.

Forty-two percent of Hispanics say they are very interested in the campaign, 7 percent below the figure for July and 25 percent below the figure four years ago.

Despite being one of the segments of the population that is being courted most heavily by the parties, just three out of 10 Hispanics have received personalized election messages from the Republicans and four out of 10 from the Democrats.

Four percent of those surveyed said they had received messages from the Romney campaign on the social networks and 8 percent said they had gotten messages of that kind from the Obama campaign. EFE