DURHAM, N.C. -- Voter excitement, always up before a presidential election, is pushing registration through the roof so far this year. More than 3.5 million people have registered to join in the historic balloting, according to an Associated Press survey that offers the first national snapshot.

Figures are up for blacks, women and young people, rural and city. South and North.

Overall, the AP found that more than one in 66 adult Americans signed up to vote in the first three months of the year. And in the 21 states that were able to provide comparable data, new registrations have soared about 65 percent from the same three months in the 2004 campaign.

While detailed data are available from only a handful of states, registration seems to be up particularly strongly for blacks and women.

Still, new voters generally are less reliable, so there's no guarantee this year's newcomers will stick around in years to come -- or even cast ballots in November if their candidate doesn't make it.

New-voter registrations favored Democrats in North Carolina, which holds its primary today. In the first three months of the year, the number of new Democratic registrants nearly tripled -- to 74,590 -- from the same period of 2004. New Republican registrations doubled.

Cherie Poucher, director of elections in Wake County, home of the state capital of Raleigh, said registrations among the parties historically have kept pace with each other -- until this year.

In the two weeks before the April 11 registration deadline, she said, the Democrats gained about 8,000 voters in Wake County while the GOP lost several hundred.