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Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press Rahm Emanual, candidate for Chicago mayor, met with voters on Friday.

CHICAGO — With an Illinois Supreme Court ruling in his favor and a phone call from President Obama (presumably congratulatory), Rahm Emanuel declared the back-and-forth battle over his qualifications to be mayor of this city over. But as Chicago awoke to a newly clear ballot picture, a question remained: For the candidates, what will be the fallout from this peculiar chapter, one in which, in a dizzying week, Mr. Emanuel was ordered off the ballot, then back on again?

Some Chicagoans suggested that the incident might tarnish Mr. Emanuel’s campaign, repeatedly reminding voters that there had been a question about Mr. Emanuel’s legal status as a resident of this city — and, perhaps, a more psychic question about whether Mr. Emanuel was really as fully steeped in Chicago as, say, Richard M. Daley, the departing mayor, who was nothing if not a Chicagoan. Mr. Emanuel, who was born in Chicago, lived in the suburbs during some of his youth and, as a congressman from Chicago, spent time in Washington even before he worked there as White House chief of staff.

A state law requires those running for mayor to have resided in Chicago for at least a year before the Feb. 22 election. In a ruling late Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously found that Mr. Emanuel did not give up his residency status when he worked at the White House. Mr. Emanuel returned to Chicago in October, but a majority of the justices found that his intent had always been to come back, leaving his residency status in tact.

But others said the residency fight would, in the end, help Mr. Emanuel, who was already leading in polls. The chapter drew enormous attention to him, including supportive headlines in newspaper editorials all over the state. The situation also seemed to recast Mr. Emanuel, who has led in polls and in fund-raising, as an underdog — in a country that likes underdogs.

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