Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley called himself "the comeback kid" Tuesday after voters gave him another four years in the city's top job.

A resilient Cranley fended off challenger Yvette Simpson and avenged a primary loss to her in May that prompted him to shake up his campaign.

The incumbent jumped ahead soon after polls closed Tuesday night and never relinquished his lead, beating Simpson 54 percent to 46 percent with about 5,000 more votes.

Cranley supporters cheered the results and the mayor was in a celebratory mood when he arrived at his downtown election night party to declare victory. He said he was humbled by his primary loss and worked hard to win back voters.

"This comeback city has made me the comeback kid," Cranley said. "We won back our own hearts. We believe in ourselves again."

Simpson said she told Cranley he ran a good race when she called to concede late Tuesday. She said he told her, "You had me on the run."

"We ran the best race we could," Simpson said. "I wouldn't change anything."

The victory was vindication for Cranley, who lost by 11 points to Simpson in the primary and ended up in the fight of his political life. After the primary, he overhauled his strategy, hired a new campaign manager and brought in a dozen paid staff to turn things around.

"He pulled himself up from a bad primary," said former Mayor Charlie Luken, a Cranley supporter.

Cranley won big in precincts on the far West Side and East Side, while Simpson ran strongest in neighborhoods in the heart of the city. The biggest swing from the primary to Tuesday's election appeared to be in neighborhoods like Oakley and College Hill, where Cranley flipped some precincts and narrowed the gap in others.

Voters also picked a City Council on Tuesday that will have some new faces because three incumbents weren't running this time around.

Democrats P.G. Sittenfeld and David Mann led the council field of 23 candidates with 38,000 votes and 34,000 votes, respectively. The three newcomers on the nine-member council are Democrats Tamaya Dennard and Greg Landsman, and Republican Jeff Pastor.

Pastor's seat might not be official for at least a few days, however. He took the ninth spot by just 317 votes over Democrat Michelle Dillingham, which means provisional ballots and a possible recount could still change the outcome.

But the spotlight Tuesday was on the mayor's race, which was both contentious and costly. Cranley raised a record $2.3 million to keep his job and Simpson raised $600,000 to try to take it.

Simpson stunned Cranley in May when she beat him soundly in the non-partisan mayoral primary, and the candidates ran hard right up until polls closed Tuesday night. Both spent time going door-to-door to make a final pitch to voters down the stretch.

"I feel like I'm running like the underdog," Cranley said before polls closed. "I've never worked harder in my life."

"It's been a great journey since the primary," Simpson said while campaigning Tuesday. "We think it's going to be closer than the primary."

The results matter not only to Cincinnati’s 300,000 residents, but also to those living in the Ohio and Kentucky suburbs. Thousands of non-residents work and pay taxes in the city, while thousands more visit the city to eat, drink and play.

Cranley and Simpson, both Democrats, dueled for months over who’d be the better mayor, but the debate was short on policy specifics. Instead, the candidates’ personalities took center stage.

Simpson, a member of city council, portrayed herself as someone who could get the job done without ruffling as many feathers as the hard-charging Cranley.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections predicted a light turnout in the city and it was every bit as low as expected. Turnout was 27.7 percent of registered voters, with 60,462 showing up at the polls or voting early.

Almost 800 more voters cast ballots Tuesday compared to 2013, the last mayoral election. But an increase in the number of registered voters meant a lower turnout percentage this year and the lowest in the city in at least a decade.

Both Cranley and Simpson mobilized volunteers to get their voters to the polls for early voting and for Election Day.

The council race was harder to predict than usual because three council members, including Simpson, did not seek re-election. With fewer candidates carrying the incumbent advantage of name recognition into the election, the competition was fierce among candidates who wanted to snag one of the incumbent’s seats.

The mayor and council will face some tough issues, from ever-tightening budgets to the heroin epidemic and the future of the city’s streetcar.

Both mayoral candidates said poverty and development are priorities. Cranley’s Hand Up Initiative has provided job training to hundreds of people living in poverty, but Simpson says more help is needed. More than one-fourth of the city’s population lives below the poverty line.

Both also said they want to do more to attract business to the city through investment in existing projects, such as The Banks riverfront development, or the pursuit of new companies, such as Amazon.

Throughout the campaign, both candidates took shots at one another over who would best take on those issues.

Simpson and her allies blasted Cranley repeatedly for a leadership style they consider too harsh. They said he is dismissive of them and others who oppose him, not just in politics but in the community.

Cranley has said Simpson's resume is too light for a mayor and he criticized her demand that Children's Hospital Medical Center pay Avondale $27.5 million as part of its expansion plans in the neighborhood.

Cranley turned the Children's Hospital spat into a major campaign issue, arguing that Simpson's position jeopardized the entire project and the hundreds of jobs likely to come with it. In the end, the hospital stuck with its original offer of $11.5 million to Avondale. Council approved the plan 6-3, with Simpson voting against it.

The next few weeks and months will be a critical time at City Hall. The makeup of the new City Council could determine how effective the mayor can be.

Peter McLinden, an official with the Cincinnati AFL-CIO, said Cranley has shown he can get things done, from revamping the city's pension system to encouraging development.

"A lot of people in the city are happy," McLinden said. "Cranley has done more in three and a half years than some have done in eight."