The unofficial results of the general election show the makeup of Conshohocken’s borough council slightly changing from six Democrats and one Republican to six Democrats and one independent. Please note that the current composition of the borough council is really seven Democrats, Ward 1’s Karen Tutino switched parties to run for re-election when the Conshohocken Democratic Committee backed another candidate in the primary (more on that later).

Ward 1 will have a new council person for the first time since 2014 as Alan Chmielewski (D) defeated incumbent Karen Tutino (R) 325-167. Tutino changed her registration from Democrat to Republican prior to the election when the Conshohocken Democratic Committee chose not to endorse her. Tutino was first appointed to the borough council in 2014 following a resignation and then won at the polls twice (as the endorsed Democrat).

Incumbent Tina Sokolowski ran unopposed and easily won. She will likely be the next president of the council.

Incumbent Kathleen Kingsley (D) easily defeated Republican challenger Kevin Lukens. This was Lukens second attempt to win a seat.

As MoreThanTheCurve.com reported last night, Independent candidate Ralph Frey beat incumbent (and council president) Colleen Leonard (D) by 45 votes. What is staggering about this result is that Frey won the mail-in vote. Many people did not even know he was running until very recently and he had no organization behind him except for a few friends. As election day approached, Leonard received endorsements from county and state elected officials such as Montgomery County Sheriff Sean Kilkenny and State Representative Greg Scott.

If you look at the turnout in the four wards that had a borough council seat up for election, Ward 7 greatly outpaced the others with 60.03%. The other three wards had turnout between 24% to 34%. Turnout in Ward 7 was up 10% from 2019 (50.28% to 60.03%) or 69 participating voters. During both elections there were 708 registered voters in the ward.

In 2023, Leonard received 51 fewer votes than she did when she was last up for election in 2019 (235 vs. 184). Frey topped Leonard’s opponent in the 2019 race, a Republican, by 117 votes.

The new members of the borough council will take office in early January.

We will have other results for the other races and communities we cover throughout the day.