Vancouverites voted for status quo Saturday, re-electing incumbent mayor Gregor Robertson to four more years at city hall.

In the end Robertson staved off his challenger, the Non-Partisan Association’s Kirk LaPointe, to win his third-straight term as leader of B.C.’s largest city.

Vision's election headquarters erupted in to cheers when Robertson walked into the room with Pharrell Williams' "Happy" blaring in the background.

"I am so humbled and honoured to have been re-elected as your mayor," Roberston told a throng of supporters. “I’ve heard from lots of Vancouverites about their strong belief and love for our city…I’ve also heard loud and clear that there are things we can do better, and we will in these next four years.”

Robertson congratuled LaPointe and COPE candidate Meena Wong for their campaigns and for engaging voters to turnout in droves. More than 180,000 ballots were cast this year, compared to about 144,000 votes in the 2011 civic election.

Early polls suggested it would be a close race but as more voting stations reported their results, Robertson began to pull away from LaPointe. With 128 out of 129 polls reporting, he had received 83,281 to LaPointe's 72,966. Wong came in third with 16,745 votes.

The lone outstanding poll is the mail-in ballots, which the city would take some time to count and report.

In his concession speech, LaPointe credited his rival for a hard-fought campaign and wished him well.

“I kind of got up his craw for a little while there, he wasn’t all that happy,” he joked to a room full of supporters. “I consider his commitment to his priorities a real role model for how mayors should operate.”

LaPointe also congratulated his party for securing three spots on city council, with George Affleck and Elizabeth Ball retaining their seats and Melissa De Genova winning a seat.

“We were an association that had lost its mojo a little bit,” he said. “I think we have moved ourselves back into the conversation.”

For his part, LaPointe said his loss doesn't mean he'll turn an eye to federal politics. "No. I’ve loved this. It’s been [a] fantastic thing," he told CTV's Mi-Jung Lee. "But I have some business concerns I want to start looking at now. I’ve actually let some of them drop a great deal in the past four, five months. It’s been a bit of a grind that way."

Interest in the election campaign was heightened thanks to a battle that turned nasty at times between the two frontrunners.

Last week, Robertson and Coun. Geoff Meggs filed a defamation lawsuit against LaPointe and the NPA, in response to allegations of corruption put forward by LaPointe.

The plaintiffs are seeking “a complete retraction, damages, costs,” and the pulling of political ads, according to a statement released by the mayor’s Vision Vancouver party.

Part of the NPA’s campaign painted Robertson and Vision as an administration that pushed through policies on issues like social housing, density and bike lanes without consultation of residents.

That prompted Robertson to take the unusual step of issuing an apology to his constituents, telling them “I know that if I am re-elected again, and honoured to have that position going forward, that I can do better.”

Interestingly, Robertson received more votes Saturday (83,281) than he did in the 2011 civic election (77,005).

Robertson, the founder of the Happy Planet juice company and a former NDP member of B.C.'s legislature, was first elected in 2008. Many Canadians remember him as the city's public face during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Before entering politics, LaPointe had a long journalism career that saw him work at several major news outlets, including The Canadian Press, where he served as Ottawa bureau chief, and the National Post, where he was executive editor. He was senior vice-president of news at CTV in the early 2000s before becoming managing editor of the Vancouver Sun newspaper.

With files from The Canadian Press