Toni Preckwinkle, battered but not down, swept to reelection as Cook County Board President Tuesday with robust 60 percent of the vote against former Chicago alderman Bob Fioretti. Polls a day before Election Day had suggested the race had tightened considerably, with just a 6 point spread between the two.

The two term board president, who had hemorrhaged good will and political capital in the wake of her disastrous county soda tax opposed by 5 out of six county residents, showed she still remains a formidable force in Cook County politics.

Fioretti had hammered Preckwinkle for the much-loathed tax on sweetened drinks, which a wide array of critics called regressive and ill advised. The tax was repealed by a 15-2 vote by the county board in December. Preckwinkle voted for the repeal, but never admitted she made a mistake, saying that people in public life “have to make difficult choices.”