The votes are in, and Democratic former State Sen. Chris Beutler has won the mayor's office — by 845 votes over Republican City Councilman Ken Svoboda.

Unofficial final vote totals showed Beutler had 24,803 votes, or 50.6 percent, compared to Svoboda’s 23,958 votes, or 48.8 percent, with all of the city's 191 precincts reporting.

Voter turnout was 32 percent, exactly as County Election Commissioner Dave Shively predicted. About 49,300 of the city's 154,000 registered voters cast ballots.

If unofficial totals hold up, Beutler will be working with a City Council that leans Republican. In District 4, Democrat Annette McRoy lost her bid for re-election Tuesday to Republican John Spatz, meaning the Council will have four Republicans and three Democrats. Spatz had 3,741 votes to McRoy's 3,121 votes.

In District 1, Doug Emery defeated LaRae Eifert 7,966 votes to 3,166 votes, or 71 to 28 percent, to claim a Council seat that opened up when incumbent Councilwoman Patte Newman said she would not run for re-election.

In District 2, incumbent Jon Camp defeated challenger Allan Abbott, the city’s former director of public works, 10,059 votes to 7,288 votes, or 58 to 42 percent.

In District 3, incumbent Jonathan Cook, a Democrat, was leading Republican challenger John Erickson, 6,630 votes to 4,598 votes, or 59 percent to 41 percent.

Voters also were being asked to approve an $8.5 million bond issue to fund 27 stormwater improvement projects around the city. With all of the city's precincts reporting, the bond won by about 3,750 votes.

In April’s primary election, Beutler walked away with 48 percent of the votes in the mayor's race, compared to Svoboda’s 35 percent. The third- and fourth-place finishers, Roger Yant and Mike Deal, endorsed Svoboda shortly after the primary.

Long before the mayoral campaign began in earnest, both Beutler and Svoboda agreed that Svoboda’s name was more widely recognized in Lincoln.

But Beutler launched an aggressive campaign in which he immediately began distancing himself from his Democratic colleague, Mayor Coleen Seng. He criticized the way City Hall was being run — which political analysts say was necessary because polls showed people were unhappy with the status quo but unsure who to blame.

When he announced his candidacy before Svoboda, Beutler laid claim to one of Svoboda’s platform planks: making the city more business-friendly.  And he sounded like a Republican as he hammered that message home throughout the campaign.

Svoboda accused Beutler of reinventing himself for his mayoral run, citing the failing grades business groups gave Beutler during in his two dozen years in the Legislature.

But Beutler’s message was louder than Svoboda’s: He was on TV early and often, vowing to fix City Hall with his trademark promise that “the buck stops here.” He started running TV ads the day after the primary election; Svoboda didn’t begin until April 17 and spent about $115,000 on TV.

Instead, the Svoboda campaign hit radio hard for two weeks; Beutler didn’t do any radio advertising.

Svoboda also relied more heavily on billboards, newspaper ads and commercial signs.

Beutler hired an experienced campaign staff led by veteran political consultant Rick Hoppe, who has helped several Democratic candidates run successful local campaigns..

Svoboda hired his “good, loyal friend” Darlene Starman, who hadn’t previously run any campaigns, although she has worked on other campaigns.

Starman said her strength is raising money and organizing get-out-the-vote pushes.

“It is very tough to find someone who is willing to do this job,” she said in an e-mailed response early Tuesday evening. “It’s long hard hours and you take a lot of criticism from people.”

Beutler’s campaign staff was bigger and more experienced than Svoboda’s.

Svoboda’s campaign had two full-time and three part-time staffers.

Beutler held a half dozen press conferences to lay out his vision for the city, while Svoboda only had a handful. Beutler bombarded the media with press releases weighing in on issues, while Svoboda was much quieter.

Early in the campaign, Svoboda made it clear he believed voters knew a lot about him through his votes on the City Council — but that clearly wasn’t enough.

In the last week of the campaign, Svoboda launched what Beutler called a negative TV ad highlighting a comment Beutler made while a state senator opposing a tax cut “because people don’t need the money.”

However, Svoboda — who vowed not to go negative in the campaign — said he didn’t view it as a negative ad.

“It was a factual piece (based on) his history of raising taxes in the Legislature,” he said.

On Monday, the Beutler campaign accused Svoboda of doctoring the video and twisting the truth. But Svoboda said just three “irrelevant” words were ommitted from Beutler’s statement: “in good times.”