E-Mail This Article to a Friend AT-LARGE RACE Maura Hennigan BY DEIRDRE FULTON

"They had us dead and buried," a triumphant Maura Hennigan told her ecstatic supporters last night at James’s Gate Restaurant & Pub in her old district, Jamaica Plain.

The at-large candidate was right. Most of the speculation leading up to Tuesday’s election placed Hennigan behind fellow incumbents Michael Flaherty and Stephen Murphy and struggling with newcomer Patricia White and incumbent Felix Arroyo to keep her seat on the city council.

But as the 51-year-old council veteran stood on a chair to give her victory speech, 45 percent of wards were reporting Hennigan finishing second, just behind Flaherty and just ahead of Arroyo. (She ultimately placed third, behind Flaherty and Arroyo, with 17 percent of the vote.) Hennigan credited her unexpected success to the voters, who she said recognized hard work and did not succumb to the lure of powerfully funded campaigns.

"This goes to show — the city isn’t for sale," she said. "You can go out and have personal back-and-forth with people ... it isn’t the slick commercials, it isn’t the money in politics. You don’t have to spend thousands."

As the results began trickling in earlier in the night, Hennigan supporters were nervously optimistic. Some blamed White for their jitters. "How do you just pop out of nowhere?" asked 52-year-old Jamaica Plain resident Natalie Rockwell, referring to what she perceived as White’s political inexperience. Others criticized Flaherty for jumping into the fray. "I felt like Michael Flaherty cynically endorsed Arroyo in the last minute," said Michael Frank, 55, of Jamaica Plain.

Hennigan sounded genuinely relieved when she said she was "very, very grateful that people were so good to me today." The progressive councilor’s experience (she has served for 20 years) and passionate activism (issues like affordable housing, public education, personal-finance education, and potholes really get her riled up) were cited throughout the evening as her campaign’s most attractive aspects.

These traits garnered support from even the most unexpected quarters, said Hennigan’s sister Helen, who spent the day campaigning. "I was over in South Boston — that’s Flaherty territory," Helen said. "I felt like I was in Jamaica Plain. The response was that good."

Now, secure in her seat, Hennigan can return to the public service she claims to enjoy most. "Let me just say," she told the applauding crowd, "[Boston Public Works commissioner] Joe Casazza has a lot of potholes to fill!"