Given the economy and unemployment numbers for college students it was just a matter of time.

Julianne Stanford of the College Fix reports.

Data Show Democrats No Longer Own Youth Vote

The Perfect Storm: Young people are fed up with Obama, and Republican leaders employ modern marketing techniques to reach Millennials.

For decades, Democrats have owned the youth vote – but CNN exit polls from the recent elections in New Jersey and Virginia indicate that trend is coming to an end, thanks in part to Millennials upset with President Barack Obama’s job performance as well as a new found emphasis among Republican leaders on reaching young voters with modern marketing tactics.

Republican Gov. Chris Christie won re-election in November, and along the way garnered 49 percent of voters age 18 to 29, up by a whopping 13 percentage points from his 2009 race, during which he claimed 36 percent of the ballots cast by young people.

Last month in Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe very narrowly defeated the state’s former attorney general Republican Ken Cuccinelli in a three-way race with Libertarian candidate Rob Sarvis, a political battle in which most of the youth vote was won by Cuccinelli.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, Cuccinelli took 45 percent of voters to McAuliffe’s 39 percent and Sarvis’ 15 percent. And with a Libertarian in the mix – who are always popular among the Millennial crowd – it isn’t a stretch to say Sarvis took away young voters from Cuccinelli, as Libertarians tend to vote Republican.

As for why Christie and Cuccinelli did so well with young voters in these recent races, it has partly to do with the candidates themselves, as well as geography, explains Peter Roff, a political commentator with U.S. News & World Report.

“Younger voters in Virginia tend to vote more conservative than the national electorate, and were attracted to Cuccinelli’s seriousness of purpose and their perception he was a conviction politician,” Roff said in an interview with The Fix. “Christie campaigned as a Jersey guy, not as a Republican. For young people in New Jersey, that is a key motivator. They liked him better.”