Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Mitt Romney, in an interview published Monday at The Daily Beast, that the presumptive GOP nominee needs to soften his rhetoric on immigration if he wants to win Latino voters.

In the interview, McCain said that he and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Romney in January to urge him to tone down his rhetoric, and he did. The candidate hasn’t used the phrase since, according to the Daily Beast.

Romney is up against low numbers for Latino support, with a recent Latino Decisions poll finding that he has only 22 percent support to President Barack Obama’s 70 percent.

Conventional wisdom among strategists is that Republicans need about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote to win a presidential election. Former President George W. Bush won 44 percent of Latino voters in 2004, according to some estimates. McCain received about 31 percent of the Latino vote when he lost to Obama.

McCain worries that Romney will do even worse, The Daily Beast reported.

“He gets 24 percent of the Hispanic vote,” McCain told the publication. “They need to do more outreach.”

Read more at The Huffington Post