Lisa Boone-Wood, JOURNAL REPORTER

Students for Barack Obama set up a sound system in front of the clock tower at Winston-Salem State University one recent afternoon and cranked up the music.

Speakers encouraged political activism while others worked the crowd to sign up new voters. In two hours, 110 students had registered to vote.

College interns for Hillary Clinton met one night last week at her headquarters in an old house at the edge of downtown.

They worked the phones, exchanged ideas about how to get out campaign information and learned how to reply to questions posed by voters on a Web site set up by the campaign.

With the May 6 primary just three weeks away, the presidential campaigns are focusing on young voters and campus organizing more than ever.

“In the past, conventional political wisdom was that young voters don’t vote, so campaigns ignored them,” said Gary Pearce, a longtime Democratic political consultant in North Carolina. “That has changed this year.”

Young people have registered in large numbers this year. N.C. State Board of Elections records show that 52,844 people ages 18 to 24 registered to vote in January, February and March, compared with 20,067 who registered during the same period in 2004.

Some attribute that surge to Obama’s popularity among young people.

“Both campaigns seem to be aggressive,” Pearce said. “But Obama’s campaign really seems to be aggressive about recruiting young people and that’s been a big part of his surge nationally.”

The Obama campaign has assigned an organizer to every college campus in North Carolina, hoping to build the kind of support among students here that he has won in other states, said Katherine Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign.

“In primary after primary, students have made a major impact on the nomination contest,” Lyons said.

Clinton’s campaign is also focusing on drawing in college students, with staff and volunteers working through a program called Student Hillblazers, said Carly Lindauer, the communications director for Hillary for President North Carolina.

“We recognize that young voters have been an integral part of this election cycle, and we will work hard to ensure they know that Sen. Clinton is the right candidate to lead this country,” she said.

Clinton’s campus strategy also relies on her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who has visited more than 90 colleges campaigning since December, campaign officials said.

Chelsea Clinton spoke to hundreds of enthusiastic Democrats in their teens and 20s last month at the annual state convention of Young Democrats of North Carolina in Raleigh.

She spent more than an hour answering questions from the audience about her mother’s campaign, focusing on issues that affect young people, such as her mother’s support for expanding the Pell Grant program and expanding AmeriCorps.

When Clinton came to Winston-Salem last month, she chose Forsyth Technical Community College to give a stump speech on the economy.

Steve Wiles, 28, a student at Forsyth Tech and a student intern for Clinton, heard her speak last month. He has admired her since she was first lady.

“She’s been consistent. Her views have been the same for close to 15 years,” said Wiles, who spent four years in the U.S. Marines. “It amazes me to see how many young people now really have no idea about what the candidates are talking about. I would like for young people to take it upon themselves to listen to what she’s been saying.”

Students from Winston-Salem State, Wake Forest University, N.C. School of the Arts and Salem College, are planning a rally Thursday, the first day for early voting. Some organizers are supporting Obama, others Clinton. They expect 600 students to march to the Forsyth County Board of Elections on Chestnut Street to vote.

Merid Fetahi, a senior political science and economics major at WSSU from Washington, is helping coordinate the march as a lead campus coordinator for WSSU Students for Obama.

“This is a way to let the community know that there are bright, educated students in the community,” said Fetahi, 24. “We want to make voting not just voting, but an experience.

“Obviously, we are for Barack Obama, but the larger picture is to get everyone to register to vote,” Fetahi said.

In the first three months of this year, the N.C. State Board of Elections received about 165,000 new voter registrations, said Gary Bartlett, the state elections director. “That is three times the number of what we had in 2004,” he said. “It seems like each day we receive voter registration, the age gets younger, however it is too early to say that it is trending, but it certainly is going in that direction.”

Kiki Teague of Winston-Salem has been active in the Democratic Party for more than 40 years.

Teague plans to vote for Clinton, but said that whoever wins the primary, the enthusiasm on college campuses is good for the Democratic Party.

“It’s going to be a force,” she said. “It’s just amazing to me that these kids are coming out. We love them.”