Spitzer faced off with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in the hard-fought, often negative contest.

Stringer won 51.9-48.1 percent, according to results posted by The New York Times.

Stringer enjoyed union backing and raked in endorsements from powerful corridors of power, ranging from the New York Times, the New York Post and the New York Daily News to a number of high-profile members of the New York congressional delegation. He focused on an intense get-out-the-vote ground game.

Spitzer, a wealthy self-funder, had more resources, with reports indicating he spent about twice as much as Stringer’s campaign. He made a concerted appeal to minority communities and employed high-tech micro-targeting with the help of several campaign veterans of Barack Obama.

Spitzer, a former attorney general who was once known as the “sheriff of Wall Street,” stressed his willingness to take on the city’s powerful special interests, while Stringer, a former state assemblyman, highlighted his experience in city government.

Spitzer shocked the political world when he said in July that he would seek to re-enter New York politics after a years-long hiatus. He resigned in 2008 over a prostitution scandal and later served as a TV host, with gigs on CNN and Current TV.

From the beginning of his campaign, Spitzer believed that the public would forgive him for his indiscretions.

“That is out there, but the public has said, ‘OK, it’s there - we’re judging you based on what you did in government,’” he said on Monday, speaking on WWRL-AM.

His wife, Silda Spitzer, has been largely absent from the campaign trail.