TAMPA, FL -- Polls show Republicans have a problem with Hispanic voters, but giving Cuban-American Florida Sen. Marco Rubio a big role here Thursday at the Republican National Convention could start to turn the tide, according to a fellow Latino.

Rubio, a darling of the Tea Party movement and a rising star in the Republican Party, is introducing the GOP's presidential candidate Mitt Romney ahead of his nomination acceptance speech Thursday night.

And E.J. Otero, a Latino GOP congressional candidate running in Tampa, said giving Rubio that honour shows the party is more diverse than people think, and is "amazingly significant.

"We are at the table. We are mainstream. We (Republicans) are for everybody," Otero told QMI Agency and Sun News Network Wednesday.

"We are not just for one portion of the population. We actually represent everybody, because we are all suffering the same ills, so the same resolutions that work for one work for everybody. And he is the best representative of the diversity of the party."

This week, a Latino Decisions/impreMedia poll, with a notable 5.6-point margin of error, found 65% of Hispanic voters intend to vote for President Barack Obama, while only 26% say they'll vote for Romney. The findings are similar to other recent polls.

And the three-day convention here has had a significant Latino contingent, including a litany of high-profile Hispanic conservatives lining up to speak, but Democrats say it's nothing but "window dressing."

"You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate," Los Angeles Mayor and Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa told reporters Tuesday about the Republican convention. Villaraigosa is chairing the Democrat convention next week in Charlotte, NC.

"Window dressing doesn't do much for a candidate. It's your policies, your platform. This is a party with a platform that calls for the self-deportation of 11 million people."

As many as 14 million Hispanics could vote in the presidential election in November and are seen as a key demographic that could decide the outcome.