Naheed Nenshi entered his re-election campaign for mayor as an overwhelming favourite, battled like a feisty underdog and exited as a triumphant victor.

The purple wave that put Nenshi into the mayor’s chair in 2010 turned into a tsunami Monday night.

The 41-year-old former business professor captured his second term as Calgary’s mayor with a massive victory over his nearest competitor, former alderman and Tory MLA Jon Lord.

Nenshi won about three quarters of the votes cast for the job as mayor — more than 125,000 votes ahead of Lord before all the ballots were counted.

"Calgarians have spoken loud and clear," Nenshi said during his acceptance speech before a jubilant crowd at the downtown Metropolitan Centre.

"They’ve spoken loud and clear about the kind of community they want. A community of great, livable, walkable neighbourhoods everywhere ... not a community of never-ending sprawl."

Nenshi has attracted attention from the start as Canada’s first big-city Muslim mayor and for his social media savvy.

But during the flood that swept through Calgary and southern Alberta in June, Nenshi received accolades from local residents — and from across Canada — for his calm and cool handling of the disaster.

While Nenshi did not shy away from a fight during this municipal campaign, he told the Herald’s editorial board last week that Calgarians are profoundly happy with the state of the city.

"I fundamentally believe we’ve got something very special here," Nenshi, who has made purple his trademark campaign colour, said at the time.

"It takes every one of us — but it also takes politicians — to have that vision, to be able to articulate who it is we want to be and to help move our community there. That’s what we tried to do during the flood, certainly that’s what we’re going to try and do for the next four years."

In a brief statement Monday evening to supporters at the Union Station bar, Lord said he entered the campaign six weeks ago to ensure there was a competitive race and that concerns such as high taxes were raised.

"I couldn’t sit idly by and watch as city hall was given a blank cheque," said Lord. "There are some issues and the economy of Calgary is being undermined."

On Monday, however, Nenshi easily vanquished a field of eight rivals to return to office.

But it’s the makeup of city council that will be a major factor in determining the tenor of his next four years in the mayor’s chair.

During the campaign, Nenshi didn’t back off from scrapping with a cadre of home builders and what he depicted as a slate of candidates that had received money from the industry.

Nenshi offered an endorsement to all incumbents running again for council. Two of those members - Gael MacLeod and John Mar - appeared to be headed for defeat but efforts to elect a more conservative council in opposition to Nenshi had mixed results.

Nenshi said he thought the home builders had little impact on the race.