A campaign season that saw a record number of new candidates challenging the old guard has ended with most of the incumbents returning to their seats on the Waltham City Council.

Paul Brasco, Diane LeBlanc, Randy LeBlanc, Kathy McMenimen, and Carlos Vidal retained their seats, beating back challenges from William Doyle, Richard Hynes, Pamela Perini and Clarence Richardson Jr.

Former councilor and current state Rep. Tom Stanley, D-Waltham, returned to the council, beating incumbent at-large Councilor Patrick O’Brien for the remaining contested seat.

Randy LeBlanc garnered the most votes among the at-large candidates--5,126--followed by Stanley with 4,145 votes, Diane LeBlanc with 4,123 votes, McMenimen with 3,902 votes, Vidal with 3,875 votes and Brasco with 3,748 votes.

Elizabeth Aljammal, John Frassica and Stephen Rando were all reelected to seats on the Waltham School Committee, beating challenger Michele Kosboth.

Frassica took the most votes among the School Committee candidates, at 4,866, followed by Aljammal with 4,203 votes and Rando with 3,775 votes.

Incumbents, for the most part, carried the day in the ward contests as well. In Ward 1, Daniel Romard won re-election over challenger Daniel Keleher. William Fowler was re-elected to Ward 2, over John Saxe. George Darcy III was re-elected to Ward 3, beating challenger Mark Bagdasarian. John McLaughlin was reelected to Ward 4, over Kelly Damm. In Ward 9, incumbent Robert Logan defeated Consuelo Valdes.

In the only incident of a newcomer taking a seat from an incumbent, Kristine Mackin took Ward 7 from Joe Giordano.

There were two races for open seats. In Ward 5, Joseph LaCava beat Christina Montgomery, and in Ward 8, Cathyann Harris defeated John Qualters.

Robert Waddick faced no challenger for his Ward 6 seat.

Romard beat challenger Daniel Keleher, 851-662. Fowler beat challenger John Saxe, Jr., 595-321. Darcy beat challenger Mark Bagdasarian 854-417. McLaughlin beat challenger Kelly Damm 584-376. LaCava beat Montgomery 587-429. Waddick received 501 votes. Mackin beat Giordano 522-376. Harris beat Qualters 421-363. Logan beat Valdes 385-271.

Only 8,953 out of Waltham's 34,073 eligible voters cast ballots, for a turnout rate of 26.2 percent.

Reached at his home Tuesday night, Patrick O’Brien said while he was disappointed at losing the seat he held for 14 years, he planned to stay active and "just keep going forward."

"I love Waltham and I’m proud of a lot of the things we’re doing here," he said. "I’m not going anywhere. I came up short tonight, but no worries, I’m a positive person and I’ll keep moving forward."

Ashley Pratte Parent, representing Progressive Waltham, a grassroots organization formed last fall to encourage candidates with progressive values, said her group was "feeling pretty good overall," about the results.

"Our group has always been about promoting community and civic engagement and we are excited to see the engagement around this election. We will continue to work on our core issues: we want to support the immigrant community, climate issues, education issues and affordable housing issues. These contested races bring greater voter turnout and more participation in city government, and more interest in local politics can only be a good thing."

John McLaughlin, celebrating his win in Ward 4, agreed.

"Competition is a good thing, it creates a healthy political environment. The citizens are the winners for it. There were a lot of new faces, and I hope they stay involved. I think it will be a very exciting 2018."

Staff writer James Sanna contributed to this report.