Lori Lightfoot looks out over the crowd of her supporters after topping all candidates in votes for Chicago mayor. Lightfoot will face Toni Preckwinkle in an April runoff. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

Toni Preckwinkle wasted little time Tuesday night in distancing herself from her Chicago mayoral run-off opponent, Lori Lightfoot

After thanking her supporters for all their hard work, Preckwinkle noted that she was a progressive back when the label made you “unelectable.”

She said she was working to improve the city while Lightfoot was getting appointed to positions in the administrations of Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel.

Lightfoot and Preckwinkle will meet in an April runoff as they were the top two vote getters Tuesday. Their victories ensure that Chicago will have a black woman as its next mayor.

In the crowded 14-person field, Lightfoot gained 17.5 percent of the vote. Preckwinkle got 16 percent of the vote. William Daley finished third with 14.8 percent of the vote.

If any candidate would have gotten at least 50 percent of the vote, he or she would have been the outright winner and no runoff conducted.

Throughout Tuesday, the city flirted with setting a record for lowest turnout, but final figures stopped short of setting a dubious honor, with 36 percent of registered voters in the city casting ballots.

Preckwinkle said she would work on behalf of all the city’s residents and be brutally honest about the problems the city faces.

“I will not tell people what they want to hear,” Preckwinkle said. “I will tell them what they need to know.”

Preckwinkle is a former city alderman,  current president of the Cook County Board, and chair of the Cook County Democratic Party.

She said she is looking to take on the city’s top post to ensure her grandchildren have a quality city in which to grow up.

Preckwinkle said she has the experience to get things done in the city, having the record to run on, not just standing at a podium and saying what should be done.

Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, mounted a late charge, picking up endorsements from U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Matteson), City Clerk David Orr and Scott Waguespack (32^nd Ward), head of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus.

“We need change,” Lightfoot told a crowd of supporters.

She said she would lead the city with “passion and persistence.”

Lightfoot said her victory was a sign of residents wanting to “crush the machine of the past “ and have an “independent council.”

With chants of “Lori, Lori” filling the room, Lightfoot said she was proud to be a gay woman running for the city’s highest post.

“I am an LGBTQ+ person running for mayor of Chicago,” Lightfoot said. “There was a time when an LGBTQ+ person could not even get on the ballot.”

She said she knows what struggling families deal with, growing up in a low-income home where both parents worked multiple jobs and her brother wound up spending most of his adult life in prison.

Lightfoot said her father died before seeing her brother turn his life around.

“I wish my dad was here to see what his son has done with his life and to see his daughter be the next mayor of Chicago,” Lightfoot said.

kbeese@chronicleillinois.com