Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk whose refusal to sign marriage certificates for same-sex couples grabbed national headlines in 2015, has lost her bid for re-election to the Rowan County clerkship. The Republican lost to Democrat Elwood Caudill Jr., 54 percent to 46 percent.
With all 19 precincts reporting , preliminary results show Caudill earned 4,210 votes to Davis' 3,566.
It was Davis' first time facing re-election since her fight against same-sex marriage landed her briefly in jail in 2015. She had defied the Supreme Court's ruling that year in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide , explaining that distributing marriage licenses to such couples went against her beliefs as a member of the Apostolic Church .
Her refusal quickly became a lightning rod of controversy, drawing support from social conservatives and anger from same-sex-marriage advocates. Held in contempt for declining to fulfill a key pillar of her duties as county clerk, Davis found herself thrown in jail for several days — and all the while, demonstrators across the political spectrum descended on the small county of some 23,000 people.
When she was released in September 2015, a large rally of conservatives — including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — was there to greet her.
These days, her national profile has diminished, though she has retained enough cultural cachet to campaign against same-sex marriage beyond U.S. borders. Just last year, Davis flew to Romania to push for a change to the country's constitution that would define marriage as specifically between a man and a woman.
Now, back at home, Davis is out of a job.
Her victorious opponent, Caudill, inevitably got caught up in the swirling controversy around same-sex-marriage licenses as well. Caudill's rival in the Democratic primary earlier this year, David Ermold , was one of the men whom Davis had denied a license in 2015. Despite dramatically outraising Caudill, Ermold failed to win the nomination.
But after Ermold's loss, he refused to throw his support behind his fellow Democrat, asserting in a Facebook post this summer that Caudill was an anti-gay bigot.
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