Elizabeth Holtzman’s bid to get New Yorkers of the 10th Congressional District to #sendherback to Washington, D.C. — to borrow her campaign’s hashtag — decades after her last term as a U.S. Representative ended Tuesday night.

Holtzman conceded the crowded race after early voting totals put her in sixth place, with Daniel Goldman, a former prosecutor, and Yuh-Line Niou, a state assemblymember, vying for the lead.

The loss marks the end of yet another chapter in Holtzman’s long political life, which has brought her to offices at local, state and federal levels. At 81 years old, she didn’t rule out turning another page and starting another quest.

“It has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with leadership,” Holtzman said shortly after arriving at her campaign’s watch party in Brooklyn after 13 hours of talking to voters. “I haven’t seen enough of it.”

Though small, Holtzman’s primary night gathering of supporters, friends and volunteers showcased the loyalty she has cultivated during her decades in public office. Nearly everyone in attendance had some prior role in a Holtzman campaign, including the election lawyer Harold Graubard and the former state Assemblyman Daniel Feldman.

As Rep. Jerry Nadler gave a victory speech on a small monitor in the corner of the cafe hosting the party, Holtzman motioned for it to be turned off so she could speak.

She praised her campaign team and noted the uphill battle she faced re-entering electoral politics after a long hiatus.

“I hadn’t called a donor for money in 30 years,” she said. “But people responded.”

Holtzman first barnstormed her way into Congress in 1972, when she defeated Rep. Emanuel Celler in the Democratic primary. Celler was then the longest-serving member of Congress, having first been elected in 1922. With little funding, she ran her campaign on shoe leather, canvassing widely in central Brooklyn and setting an example that political upstarts like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would use with great success decades later.

Holtzman’s win, and eventual triumph in the general election, made her the youngest woman elected to the body at the time, a record that stood until 2014. As a member of the House’s Judiciary Committee, she received national attention during the televised Watergate hearings, and eventually questioned President Gerald Ford on his decision to pardon Richard Nixon after the disgraced former president’s 1974 resignation.

She would go on to be the first female district attorney in New York City, in Brooklyn, and the city’s first female comptroller. In 1982, she came within striking distance of her Republican opponent to be New York’s junior Senator.

Holtzman says that she returned out of outrage over the leaked draft of the Supreme Court ruling that would eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.

She said that she believes there is a “lack of leadership” in the Democratic party in criticizing the Supreme Court and pro-Trump Republicans or passing transformative laws.

“It’s not enough to advocate legislation that’s going nowhere,” she said. “You have to come up with concrete plans that have some chance of changing things.”

Compared with her opponents, Holtzman said, she had experience that none of them could claim, such as being part of a successful effort to remove a sitting president from office or write federal legislation that could withstand a challenge in the courts.

“This is really a time that cries out for the qualities I have, the experience I have,” she said.

During the campaign, Holtzman trailed the top candidates in fundraising, bringing in about $227,000, according to the latest federal campaign disclosure reports.

Yet Holtzman has punched above her weight as one of the few candidates without a current political office. Holtzman received an endorsement from The Daily News, and also earned a mention in The New York Times’ endorsement of Goldman, something the paper denied to any other candidate besides Jones.

In a segment of NY1’s debate for the district race earlier this month in which candidates posed questions to one another, Holtzman pressed Goldman on his investments in Fox News.

“When you’re a Congressperson, you can’t blame your stockbroker,” Holtzman told Goldman. “The buck stops at your desk.”

Holtzman also outlasted the city’s former mayor, Bill de Blasio, who exited the race in July.

“She’s done much better than people like me expected, to be honest,” said Jerry Skurnik, a veteran political consultant. “I think she helped her legacy.”

Holtzman said she did not have any immediate political plans, but would continue writing about her concern about the direction of the country, which she said she fears is on the road to fascism.

Yet the energy and passion she feels to challenge the country’s intractable problems is not going away, she said.

“It’s either the Brooklyn water or the genes,” she said.