“It’s much higher turnout than anyone expected,” caucus captain David Graham said cheerfully. “We were hoping for 3,000 voters, 10 percent of registered, and we might hit that by noon.”

Kentucky’s caucus experiment, a byproduct of Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) unsuccessful presidential campaign, was not a bust. Like the caucuses in Iowa and Nevada, it offered Republicans a ballot they could use to vote anonymously. Unlike those caucuses, it would last a generous six hours; Paul himself was planning to vote after the first wave.

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“We think it’s going to energize the party,” Paul said. “Today’s kind of like a pep rally.”

Unclear in the first hour of voting was who might win. Rival campaigns had speculated that Donald Trump would suffer in a system that required voters to have registered as Republicans by the end of last year. Leading in polls, the front-runner’s campaign had run its typically opaque ground game, anchored by a monster rally five days earlier in Louisville. Tea party organizers for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) were much more visible; legislators getting behind Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had larger megaphones.

At the caucus site, at Western Kentucky University, volunteers for Rubio, Cruz and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) set up tables with literature for wavering voters. Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-founded group that accidentally produced some of Trump’s best organizers, tabled nearby with free food for anyone willing to join a contact list.

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Trump’s campaign was not present, but his voters were.

“He takes no s--t, and neither do I,” said Barbara Eljizi, 68, who referred to the current president as “Osama Obama.”

“I kind of preferred Cruz on some issues, but I think he lied about the whole Ben Carson situation,” said Vicky Byrun, 70, referring to a misunderstanding about the retired neurosurgeon’s campaign schedule that inspired some Cruz volunteers to tell Iowa caucus-goers that he was quitting the race.

“I’m for Trump 100 percent,” said Jonathan Bunch, 63.

“I was for Trump until around two weeks ago,” admitted Leon Vincent, 70. “Rubio makes more sense.”

Vincent and Bunch, both veterans from the Vietnam War era, spent some of their wait time debating the race, not expecting to change minds.

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“If Trump don’t get it, they go up there and do this crap of trying to keep it out, and Rubio, Cruz, and John-what’s-his-name take the nomination, nothing changes,” said Bunch.

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“Well, whoever gets the nomination – even if it’s Trump – I’ll vote for him,” said Vincent.

Nathan Shouse, 33, had never considered a Trump vote. Neither had his wife, Michal, 28. As their three children amused themselves in a Radio Flyer wagon, they described how the “integrity” of Ben Carson had won them over, but his apparent befuddlement over foreign policy sent them reaching for Cruz.

“Trump is saying a lot of things that the voters want to hear, but he’s not standing behind the core principles of conservatism,” Nathan Shouse said. “That worries me.”

“In the Fox debate, he was making very crude jokes,” said Michal Shouse. “I don’t want that in a president.”

Many voters admitted, in a bittersweet tone, that they would have preferred to be supporting Paul. Their praise got a little louder when the senator started working the long voting line, signing books and posing for photos. To do so, he walked right past a sign alerting voters to the fact that he – as well as Carson et al. – would appear on the ballot but was no longer in the race.

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Whom would he vote for?

“I’m not making an endorsement.”

Whom was he telling his constituents he would vote for?

“Everybody asks that,” Paul said. “If I say who I’m voting for, it’s an endorsement. Even my wife – I’m not telling her!”

Watching the clock before he raced to catch a flight to Washington, Paul got ushered through the line and into the caucus site, where volunteers were staffing 30 tables to check in voters. The man whose campaign had paid $250,000 to organize the caucus went to Table 24 – last names from Owsley to Phillips – and displayed his driver’s license. Moving quickly away from a prying cameraman, he filled it out, dropped it into a box, and headed for his waiting SUV.

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What, asked a reporter, did he think of the voters insisting that they would still give him a vote for president?

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“It’s nice,” said Paul. “You know, maybe we’ll unsuspend!”

“No, no, no!” said Paul’s state press secretary, Kelsey Cooper. “Please don’t tweet that.”

“Well, if we win,” Paul said, still sort of joking. “It is bittersweet. We worked pretty hard in the election. It’s kind of neat to be on the ballot, but we wish we were still active. I’m still saying the same things, just in a different race.”