News Analysis: With Trump leading nomination race, Republican Party hard to change image of "older white men's club" to woo minority voters

Despite the abundance of minority candidates running for the presidential nomination, the U.S. Republican Party (GOP) is still unable to shake off the image of being the party of older white males with the increasing popularity of front-runner Donald Trump, U.S. experts said.

The GOP, short for Grand Old Party, has for the last few years talked of changing its traditional image as the "older white men's club" to appeal to single women and non-white minority voters. But despite the fact that many of the party's rising stars are not white, the party will likely have problems come election day on gaining the votes of Hispanics and African Americans - two crucial voting blocs that are essential to winning elections.

Indeed, the two candidates now trailing after bombastic billionaire Donald Trump, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz, are both sons of Cuban immigrants. Retired brain surgeon Ben Carson, who briefly was No. 2 in the GOP pack a few months back, is African American, while Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is the son of immigrants from India. Carson and Jindal have already dropped out of the race.

But despite an array of candidates that is far more diversified than the Democratic candidates, the GOP still has a major problem getting minority voters on board, the experts said.

"In terms of the electorate the Republicans have not demonstrated that their policies are attractive to minority voters. In the end that's what matters for election victory," Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, told Xinhua.

Not helping matters for the GOP are a number of provocative statements made by Trump in his highly controversial campaigning, including making insulting attacks on women, referring to Mexican immigrants as "criminals, drug dealers, and rapists," and calling for a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. by Muslims.

A Washington Post/Univision News poll published last month showed that 51 percent of Hispanics support Democrats, while a mere 14 percent support the GOP. Indeed, while Trump has used the issue of illegal immigration to bolster his ratings among his supporters and gain front-runner status, his sentiments have not endeared him to Hispanics, and his negative ratings among Hispanics have been on the rise.

The poll found that eight in 10 Hispanics have a negative view of the brash businessman. That is an increase from the time he announced his candidacy in summer, when seven in 10 Hispanics viewed him unfavorably.

Trump's negative rates have intensified as the controversial candidate has repeatedly called for a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexican border -- which he says he would get Mexico to pay for -- to keep out the heavy tide of illegal migrants.

"Republicans are not thought to be inclusive of minorities because their policy positions are hostile to what minority voters believe is important to their future," Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

"GOP candidates talk tough on immigration and make it sound like even legal immigrants add nothing to the United States," West added.

"They ignore the many ways that lawful immigration adds economic and social benefits to the country," he said.

West also said that GOP tax policies do not appeal to working class Hispanics and African Americans.

"The same problem emerges on other issues. Republican tax policies disproportionately benefit the well-to-do, not working class Hispanics... and African Americans, so it is hard for those voters to see that GOP policies are going to help them," he said.

For their part, Republicans argue that GOP policies of low taxes and fewer regulations help businesses create jobs, which in turn benefits minority voters. Republicans also contend that their philosophy of hard work, self-sufficiency and smaller government is more in line with what most immigrant voters want.

While Trump has boasted that he has gained support from a sizable amount of the African American community, that seems not to be the case.

Trump recently said a "recent poll" showed a quarter of the country's African Americans support him in a race against probable Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, although that poll was from September. More recent polls in February show that far fewer voters from that bloc support him -- between 4 percent and 12 percent.

Indeed, analysts say it is unlikely that Trump will peel off a significant portion of the African American vote, as the demographic is loyal to Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who African American Nobel Prize winning writer Toni Morrison called as the nation's "first black president," given Clinton's affinity for African American voters. Endit