Despite heaps of spending by third-party groups, a split Democratic field, and four endorsements by The Washington Post, Pat Mara, the lone Republican running in yesterday’s special election for an At-Large seat on the D.C. Council, finished third. Mara, making his third bid for a Council seat as a self-described “socially progressive Republican,” wound up with 11,367 votes, behind former Washington City Paper reporter Elissa Silverman, and the winner, Councilmember Anita Bonds, who was appointed to the seat last December by members of the D.C. Democratic State Committee that she oversees.

“Believe it or not I can get over it,” Mara, clutching a beer, said last night at what he surely planned would be a victory party at The Coupe in Columbia Heights. “I’m still the only Republican on the board of education.”

Mara entered the race hoping his blend of social values—which are much different from the national Republican Party’s—and distance from the ethical stench of the John A. Wilson Building would make him appealing to many of the city’s progressive voters. He carried pluralities in wards 2 and 3, but garnered just half Silverman’s total in his home turf of Ward 1, and didn’t fare much better in wards 4 or 6.

Despite his third loss in as many Council elections, Mara says he might not be finished yet. “I may run again,” he said. “I really care about the city. This is not the outcome many of us hoped for.”

But any chance that a Republican, even one who is ahead of his national party on issues like same-sex marriage and District voting rights, can win citywide office, might be fading. In his column today for NBC4, Chuck Thies, a Democratic strategist who backed Mara in this election, writes that Mara’s loss last night leaves the local Republican Party “without a star and raises questions about whether it can compete in an overwhelmingly Democratic town.”

Thies also doubts Mara will make another bid for the D.C. Council after this latest defeat. “Two years ago, Mara got 11,851 votes in a special election. Yesterday, he got 11,367 in a special election,” Thies writes in an email. “In 2008, he got 37,447 in a general election. He has lost to Michael Brown, Kwame Brown, Vincent Orange, and Anita Bonds.”

As for whether the urban Republican brand can be revived, Thies thinks there’s a chance, but that Mara isn’t the one to do it.

“Mara has a steel spine and moxie, but he is not a glutton for punishment,” he writes. “It is obvious that there simply aren’t enough votes for a white, male Republican to win a citywide election in D.C. at the present time. “I believe it is time for a female candidate to run with the torch.”

The last female Republican to run in a citywide election, Mary Brooks Beatty, barely made a dent in last year’s general election for an At-Large seat. As for Carol Schwartz, a former At-Large councilmember who Mara defeated in a 2008 primary, Thies says she’s not it, either.

“Carol is extinct,” he writes. “No, it has to be a young-ish GOP-er with the time and energy to build something among peers.”