For New York City immigrants who made their way through the rain to the polls yesterday, the chance to bask in the glow of victory as the votes were tallied didn’t depend completely on whether their candidates won.

With the Democratic candidates falling over themselves to woo immigrant voters in the past week, and with the spectacular rise of the most pro-immigrant among the Republican candidates, Senator McCain, suggesting that the illegal immigrant issue is less important to voters than his opponents previously assumed, immigrants came out as some of the biggest winners in the Super Tuesday primary contests.

“Those who are against immigrants, they’re out of the race,” a Dominican immigrant, Damnia Novas, 44, said after casting her vote at a poll site on Amsterdam Avenue in the heart of Washington Heights.

Ms. Novas’s neighborhood had been flooded in recent days with caravans of Obama and Clinton supporters trying to rally the mostly Hispanic residents.

The efforts hardly seemed necessary yesterday, however, even as intermittent rain occasionally sent would-be voters scurrying inside for shelter.

A handful of soggy Obama signs hung limply from light posts, but a group of young men passing by took up their cause anyway, repeating the candidate’s name in a cheerful, sing-song rap before sauntering on.

Nearby, a group of elderly ladies speaking in Spanish admonished another elderly friend to vote for “Hillary” before heading into a polling site.

Josephina Ovalles, a 39-year-old maintenance worker from the Dominican Republic, said immigration had been the most important issue on her mind as she cast her vote for Senator Clinton.

As for the recent attention the candidates have been paying to immigrants, she said: “We feel good.”

In East Harlem, a Filipina immigrant, Frida Ramchani, 65, said education and health care had brought her out to vote for the first time since becoming a citizen 30 years ago. She also said she appreciated the candidates’ increased attention to immigrants. “I think they care more this year,” she said.

Immigrant advocates also claimed the day as a victory for their cause, although they noted that there were some key differences between the three frontrunner candidates on immigration policy.

The director of the New York Immigration Coalition, Chung-Wha Hong, said she was concerned about Mr. McCain’s recent backtracking from his previous advocacy for a path to legalization for illegal immigrants.

She also said Senator Obama’s support of drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants and his promise to push through an overhaul of the immigration system within a year if he is elected — two issues important to immigrant voters — have posed a “challenge” to Mrs. Clinton, who has opposed drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants.

“I think the increased outreach to immigrants is definitely welcome,” she said. “Now, show us how far you’re willing to go to stick up for us.”