MANHATTAN — Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli will keep his job after facing the fight of his life Tuesday in the race to manage the state's finances.
DiNapoli has 50 percent of the vote with 97 percent of ballots counted, compared with Republican challenger Harry Wilson's 47 percent — enough to call the race.
"What have you been waiting for?" DiNapoli joked as he took the stage to make his victory speech in front of a sparse crowd just after 1:30 a.m.
"This is a great honor for me to be the people's choice for New York State comptroller," he said, standing next to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and flanked by more than a dozen city and state officials and his 86-year-old dad.
"I think our race is a little bit of a lesson that it's not always about the polls or the pundits or the papers, for that matter," he said. "It's about the people."
DiNapoli said he received a call from Wilson conceding Wednesday morning.
"[Wilson} was very gracious in conceding this close and hard fought contest," a statement read.
Throughout the campaign, Wilson, a 38-year-old hedge fund manager from Scarsdale, painted DiNapoli as an Albany insider who could not be trusted to manage the state's pension fund.
DiNapoli, however, argued that Wilson was too close to Wall Street.
DiNapoli appeared to have suffered in the polls after Andrew Cuomo declined to endorse him, citing the ongoing investigation into his predecessor Alan Hevesi.
But DiNapoli was able to turn the tide around in the end to come out ahead.
"This is an awesome responsibility you've entrusted me with," he told supporters. "We have fiscal challenges right now so the work continues tomorrow."
DiNapoli's close friend, Brooklyn's Joseph Stamm, 63, said DiNapoli had feared he would lose up until the final hours.
He was with the candidate at 9:15 p.m. when live results showed him 13 points behind.
"He had tears in his eyes," Stamm said.
Winning, he said, "means the world."
