After a long and close primary, Speaker Jeff Merkley ultimately won the Democratic nod to take on Sen. Gordon Smith in November.

Merkley won with 45 percent to Novick’s 41 percent, and Candy Neville garnered seven percent of the total vote.

Novick conceded with his trademark humor, saying that the last phase of the campaign reminded him of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; “a couple of outlaws against an entire army.”

Novick indeed was the underdog—Merkley carried most of the establishment support as well as the nod of (and some funding from) the national powers that be, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In a ballroom packed full of supporters, Novick delivered a message familiar to those who have been watching the campaign: “I look out at this room and I don’t see a coward or a traitress among us.”

“We proved there is a constituency for truth, a constituency for laughter, a constituency for courage.”

And, in true Novick style, the candidate proclaimed that “We are going to go down in history with the greatest losers of all time.”

He also called for Democrats to unite behind Merkley.