With 82 percent of precincts reporting, Democrat Mark Poloncarz holds a 53 percent to 47 percent lead over incumbent Republican Chris Collins in the Erie County executive race.

If Poloncarz prevails, he’d knock off a potential challenger to political patron Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who endorsed and campaigned for the Erie County comptroller.

As of 11:30, Poloncarz scored 97,801 votes to 85,193, making it unlikely that Collins would be able to make up the difference with absentee ballots.

In Suffolk County, Democrat Steve Bellone appears to have defeated Republican Angie Carpenter, 56 percent to 43 percent, with 935 districts out of 1,047 reporting.

Bellone, the Babylon town supervisor, will replace outgoing County Executive Steve Levy, the Democrat-turned-Republican who launched an aborted campaign for governor in 2010, but dropped his re-election bid after running afoul of campaign-finance laws.

In Monroe County, Maggie Brooks is headed to another term as county executive as she easily defeated Democratic challenger Sandra Frankel.

The Assembly is also up for two more vacancies.

Republican Marcus Molinaro has defeated Beacon town Supervisor Dan French to become the next Dutchess County executive.

In Yonkers, Assemblyman Mike Spano, a Republican-turned-Democrat and scion of the powerful Spano political family, has scored an easy win to become the mayor of the state’s fourth-largest city. He is the first Democrat elected mayor in the city since 1995.

It’s easy to spin many of the races in which Bellone, Poloncarz and Spano all won as victories for Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The three candidates benefited from last-minute stumping by the wildly popular governor.

But all were running in Democratic-friendly areas. Bellone and Spano both had financial advantages over their opponents, as well as the benefit of running in Democratic-heavy areas. Poloncarz, while outspent by Collins, had a huge enrollment advantage in Erie County.

None of these races were necessarily pre-determined outcomes, but given the Democrats’ built-in advantages, it’s too easy to overestimate Cuomo’s impact.

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