Asian Americans, whose voting power has been much less scrutinized than of African-American and Hispanic voters, were a significant factor in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) victory in Tuesday’s California Democratic primary.

Asian American voters made up 8 percent of the Democratic vote in the Golden State and supported Clinton by a 3-1 margin. They are now poised to be a factor in upcoming contests as the battle between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continues.

Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have longstanding ties to Asian American communities, which they have relied on at the polls and to raise campaign funds. Those relationships appeared to help Clinton in California, and could further boost her campaign going forward.

“They’ve seen the Clintons over the last 12-13 years,” said Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. “Obama, they’ve just come in contact with him in this last campaign. If Obama were to have a little more time, I think his exposure would have been greater.”

Asian Americans still remember that President Clinton appointed an Asian American, Norman Mineta, as his Transportation secretary, said Honda, who has not endorsed a candidate. Hillary Clinton tapped Gary Locke, the first Asian American governor of the lower 48 states, to co-chair her Washington state campaign.

An Asian American political action committee, the 80/20 Initiative, endorsed Clinton over Obama in the California primary because she answered an unequivocal “Yes” to a questionnaire asking whether she would eliminate discrimination against Asian Americans in the workplace.

Among Asian Americans in Congress, Clinton has received the endorsements of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.).

Clinton’s strength in the Asian American community was underlined in April, when a fundraiser she held in Los Angeles’ Chinatown yielded $380,000 in campaign contributions.

Asian Americans long have been a source of funds for the Clinton’s but sometimes this has been less than helpful. The Democratic National Committee had to return nearly half of the $3.4 million in political donations raised by John Huang, a Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration, after the DNC found that the money came from questionable donors. Another figure in the fund-raising controversy, Charlie Trie, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund, but was later found to have violated campaign finance laws.

Last year, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign returned $850,000 in contributions bundled by Norman Hsu after he was arrested on fraud charges.

Obama also has ties to the Asian American community, some of which are more personal than Clinton’s. He lived in Indonesia when he was a child, he speaks Indonesian and his half-sister is half-Indonesian. He was born and attended high school in Hawaii, where his parents met while attending the University of Hawaii and where his grandparents lived.

In Congress, Obama has the backing of Del. Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa). He’s also supported by Mineta and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), who is white but serves as chairman of the Asian Pacific American Caucus’s immigration task force.