Here's some of what they saw:

BACHMANN SWAMPS

"I have been to 4 #iastrawpoll events and never seen a line as long as Bachmann's," Iowa Gov. Terry E. Branstad's Communications Director Tim Albrecht tweeted midday.

That seemingly endless line was the subject of much speculation, snaking out from her tent and curving back around until it nearly intersected with the food line at former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum's tent on the other side of the Hilton Coliseum on the campus of Iowa State University. At the line's front, once could actually slip unimpeded into her tent to see musical acts like Randy Travis in the dim air-conditioned space, where there were seats for the elderly and infirm. The hold-up at the tent's entrance wasn't to enter -- it was the thousands of people waiting to sign in and be given tickets that would allow them to cast a vote for Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Ultimately, more than 6,000 of the $30 tickets to vote were distributed by her campaign, according to a source inside her tent, giving her the edge and making her the first woman to ever win the Ames Straw Poll after 4,823 of them cast ballots for her.

"Thank you everyone for being here," Bachmann said to cheers, emerging briefly from her campaign bus to shake hands and thank supporters after being declared the victor. "This is the very first step toward taking the White House in 2012 and sending the message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president." The one-term president line has become a signature in her stump speech, so much so that the coliseum audience chanted it along with her when she used it in while addressing them earlier in the day.

"We love you. Thank you so much. It's your victory," she told supporters.

It's not totally clear what happened to the rest of the distributed Bachmann tickets, some 1,200 of which did not turn into votes. What was clear was that not everyone in Bachmann's long lines was an eligible voter -- there were a slew of people from Minnesota still waiting for beef sundaes toward the end of the balloting period, for example. Among them was Pat Konkleir, 58, who came down from Blaine, Minn., in Bachmann's district to help organize straw poll activities. "We brought down a bus of 40 or 50 or so," she said.

Even so, with 16,892 ballots cast, it was highest number of votes at a straw poll since 1999.

Bachmann's Iowa faith-based coalitions organizer credited her win to the churches. "I've not ever seen anything like this," he said, strolling the floor in the press center after it was clear she'd won but before the results were announced -- and before realizing he wasn't supposed to give out his name. They were "extraordinary numbers."

"At the end of the day, the story is going to be the faith-based turnout," he said. That, and Ed Rollins, Bachmann's top political adviser, who was "really an inspiration. He told us how to do it."