Overlooked on election night by the Republicans taking control of Congress was the record night had by Chinese Americans in the U.S. midterm elections.

This year's elections set a record for the highest number of Chinese-Americans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, signifying the group's increasing political influence, reports Global Times.

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California is home to the largest number of Chinese-Americans elected last week as nine out of 11 candidates running won on election night, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, one state senator, and six members of the State Assembly.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., who became the first Chinese-American woman elected into Congress in 2009, easily held onto her seat this year. She is a chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing part of the electorate. In 1996, the group made up just 1.6 percent of the voting population, and has more than doubled to 3.4 percent in 2012. And this increase has affected the outcome of elections.

Chinese-American voters have been credited with helping California, a traditionally Democratic stronghold move a little to right. Voters were mobilized by their opposition to a proposed California Senate Constitutional Amendment (SCA5) that was seen as discriminatory against Asian students.

SCA5 was introduced by Democratic state senator Edward Hernandez, and proposed the University of California schools system adopt a quota system based on demographic distribution. Chinese-American opponents of the proposition said that if passed, the percentage of Asian Americans attending the UC system would plunge to 12 percent from its current 40 percent.

In the Virginia Senate race, according to The Daily Beast, Asian Americans made up 3 percent of the electorate. Because this was larger than the margin of victory, it means that they were influential in determining the result.

It has been a particularly significant shift in political influence considering the history America has of ostracizing Chinese Americans. It was until 1943 that the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. The US Senate finally delivered an official apology to the Chinese-American community for the Act in 2011.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into U.S. federal law in 1882, and was originally intended to last only 10 years. It excluded Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for 10 years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. It also made Chinese immigrants permanent aliens by excluding them from U.S. citizenship.

TagsChinese Americans Win in Record Numbers in Midterms, Exert New Influence, Chinese Americans, political group, Judy Chu, electorate, midterm elections, SCA5, California State Assembly