A gay man who was denied a marriage license by anti-LGBT county clerk Kim Davis has lost his bid to unseat her.

In 2015, clerk Kim Davis of Rowan County, Kentucky, rose to infamy after refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay people in defiance of marriage equality's passage into law. One of the people she denied was David Ermold, who applied for a marriage license with his now-husband David Moore.

Undeterred by Davis' homophobic attitude, Ermold made the bold choice to run against her in the 2018 midterm elections after she announced her campaign for re-election last year. "If Kim Davis was reelected in that position without an appropriate fight, I’d probably regret it for the rest of my life," he told WKU Public Radio.

Ermold reportedly out-raised his opponent, fellow Democrat Elwood Caudill Jr., by more than $200,000. However, his campaign came to an end on Tuesday, when Caudill defeated him in the Kentucky primaries.

But Ermold's spirits aren't crushed: The candidate took to Twitter to share a message of hope to his supporters.

"We knew from the beginning that we had a difficult task, and while our campaign is coming to a close, our work to reaffirm Rowan County as a diverse and welcoming community has only just begun," he tweeted.