Photo by Matt Cohen.

“My last request to you is to take that spirit of not giving up and use it to support our new mayor,” David Catania said to a crowd of a couple hundred of his supporters.

At his election launch party at the Longview Gallery across from Washington Convention Center, the Independent nominee for mayor of D.C. conceded to Democratic nominee Muriel Bowser with 35 percent of the vote. Surrounded by his campaign staff, Catania said, “This race did not end the way we had hoped,” but congratulated Bowser on a well-run campaign.

For Catania, who officially launched his mayoral campaign in March, it’s been a uphill battle. In all the polls leading to the election, he’d been trailing behind Bowser, often by percentage points in the double digits. But with a general election that brought out a lot more voters than the dismal primary election did, Catania said he, nor his staff never gave up on his campaign. And that’s the message he wanted his supporters to know.

“Never give up, never give in,” he said, teary eyed, as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” started playing.