Former President Donald Trump and his allies have tried to frame former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his last remaining major challenger for the GOP presidential nomination, as a tool of the Washington and Republican Party establishment.

As the polls closed in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Trump Campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Haley of being "bought and paid for not only by the Republican establishment, but also by Democrat donors that are fuelling her campaign" in an interview with Fox News.

But despite those comments, Trump has racked up endorsements from a vast majority of the Republican Party elite, including a slew of new endorsements after his win in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

Not only is Haley not getting new backers after her second place finish in New Hampshire, but much of the party is calling on her to drop out — including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other top House lawmakers, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, over half of the Senate GOP conference, four former primary rivals, a slew of state party officials and top federal and state officials from her home state of South Carolina.

“What we have to do is just focus on South Carolina, make the margin so wide, so devastating that the race is over,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said on Fox News on Wednesday. Haley appointed Scott to his seat in 2013 when she was governor of the state. “We're going home to South Carolina, to finish this race and start focusing on Joe Biden. It's the future of our nation, not our party, that’s at stake.”

South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, who was endorsed by Haley when she faced a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022 after denouncing the president in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, expressed a similar sentiment to Scott.

“South Carolina is Trump country and he is crushing it right now,” Mace told Fox News in a separate interview on Wednesday. “I want to say that Nikki Haley ran a great race. She made it deep into the playoffs, but the playoffs are now over and it's time to start the Super Bowl.”

Trump is leading in South Carolina by an average of 37 percentage points, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. The state’s primary is scheduled for Feb. 24.

McDaniel, who had previously remained neutral in the primary contest, also went on Fox News on Wednesday morning to call for the party to unite around Trump.

“I'm looking at the math and the path going forward. And I don't see it for Nikki Haley. I think she's run a great campaign,” McDaniel said. “But I do think there is a message that's coming out from the voters, which is very clear: We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump.”

“If we do not unite, and if we don't come to coalesce to beat [Biden], then we're not going to be successful in 10 months where the Senate is at stake, the House is at stake and the White House is at stake,” she added.

But Haley is not without her defenders. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who has emphatically backed the former South Carolina governor, chided McDaniel and other voices calling for his preferred candidate to bow out.

“The head of the Republican Party saying we don't want to hear from all the other Republicans in the nation because it's getting too close. That's nonsense,” Sununu said on Fox News on Wednesday, arguing there has only been two primary contests. “You got to let the voters decide, not a bunch of political elites out of D.C.”

Trump won the Iowa caucuses last week by 30 percentage points and Haley came in third behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the race days later. In New Hampshire, Trump won by just 11 percentage points, but became the first non-incumbent Republican candidate to win both states. There is no state left on the primary calendar where Haley is polling particularly close to Trump, though new polling has yet to emerge since she beat expectations in New Hampshire.

After the New Hampshire results were announced, Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Deb Fischer of Nebraska joined nearly 30 of their senatorial colleagues in endorsing Trump. Haley has yet to secure a Senate endorsement and has just a single House backer.

Then, on Wednesday, Lousiana Sen. John Kennedy became the 30th senator to endorse Trump.

"Competition makes us all better, so I let the primary play out, but this thing's over," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Also on Wednesday, two top Senate Republicans — South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the GOP conference’s No. 2 leader, and North Carolina Sen. Thom Thillis — both declined to offer their endorsement but said they would back Trump if he wins the nomination. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he is unlikely to endorse and has long been at odds with his party’s standard bearer.

"I think, essentially, the primary is now over," Sen. Rand Paul said, according to Axios. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a vehemently anti-Trump Republican, opined that the race was likely over after New Hampshire.

Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick, who first endorsed DeSantis, also called on his “fellow conservatives” to rally around Trump. And in a New York battleground district that voted for Biden by around eight percentage points in 2020, freshman Rep. Brandon Williams declared his support for the former president. 

And the GOP chairs in Michigan, Florida and Georgia called for an end to the primary after Trump’s victory in New Hampshire.

“The results of Iowa and New Hampshire make it clear that President Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio, and Senator Rick Scott have all called for us to unite behind Donald Trump,” Florida GOP chair Evan Power said in a statement on Wednesday. “To that end the Republican Party of Florida will hold a formal vote to endorse President Trump at our annual meeting on February 10th.”

Not all were pleased with Trump’s all-but-assured third GOP presidential nomination. Maine Sen. Susan Collins said she won’t endorse Haley, but was glad to see she’s still in the race. And on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Indiana Sen. Todd Young told reporters “hell no” when asked if he would back Trump.

But besides a handful of stragglers, Trump has mostly locked up national Republicans’ support as he seeks a second trip to the White House. As of Wednesday, he had been endorsed by the entirety of House GOP leadership, 11 governors, 30 senators and over 130 House members.

Still, Haley fights on, appearing via Zoom at a meeting of the Virgin Islands’ Republican party on Wednesday before rallying in North Charleston, S.C., later in the evening. She’s got two more South Carolina rallies this weekend.

“Biden – too old. Trump – too much chaos. A rematch no one wants,” a narrator reads in a new ad Haley’s campaign is spending millions to air in South Carolina. “There’s a better choice for a better America.”

But Republicans seem uninterested in that choice. Voters so far, and the elected officials they’ve chosen to represent them, are choosing Trump by wide margins, despite the chaos.

“Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley can NEVER win the General Election because she will NEVER get MAGA!” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday.