And then, Mr. Bloomberg — almost ostentatiously unsentimental over much of his political career — seemed to go somewhere unexpected: inward.

“You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said, beneath circular light fixtures shining red, white and blue, overlapping like Olympic rings. “And every day gets better.”

He tapped on the platform in front of him. His voice appeared to be breaking. “I’m sorry we didn’t win,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “But it’s still the best day of my life. And tomorrow is going to be even better.”

He thanked his advisers for giving him “honest advice even when I didn’t want it.” He said he decided to run even though he “knew we didn’t have much of a chance,” assuming an underdog’s posture that was complicated somewhat by his runaway spending.

He described the campaign as “more than a young boy who memorized ‘The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere’ ever dreamed of.”

“I believe that our great nation still sees that light in the Old North Church tower,” he said, choking up again, his eyes appearing to redden a bit, “the light of freedom, the light of liberty, the light of equality and the light of opportunity.”

He shook his head slightly, as if taken aback by his body’s response to the circumstances. “We will not,” he said, wrapping up, “allow any president to dim that light.”