Mompreneur Strikes Deal With Walmart Just 2 Years After Launching Her Beauty Products

Meet Ebony Robert, founder and CEO of Ebony’s Beauty Hair and Skin Care, whose handcrafted all-natural hair and skincare products are now available in Walmart stores nationwide. Ebony, a mother of five boys, launched the business two years ago, but says that her love for the beauty industry started at a very young age.

Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, Ebony built her business from the ground up and continues to fulfill her dream of being a woman entrepreneur. Last year, she grossed almost six figures while working as a full-time teacher.

As a wife, mom, and a boss, Ebony has positioned her company to become a very popular household brand on the rise. In addition to her distribution deal with Walmart (in both the U.S. and Canada), she has also established a partnership with Amazon.

Her motivation to launch the company was to give consumers safer alternatives without the use of harmful chemicals when it comes to hair and skin care products. Ebony comments, “My products are safer, effective, and free of harsh chemicals. They provide relief of dandruff, dry itchy scalp, weak and falling hair as they promote hair growth.”

She says her company is committed and passionate about helping her customers achieve great results for their hair and skin care goals.

For more details about her company and/or to place an order, visit EbonysBeauty.shop or Walmart.com

Also follow the brand on Instagram @ebonysbeauty5

This article was originally written by BlackBusiness.com.

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‘Waiting for a tumbleweed to blow.’ Niagara Falls mayors on leading divided border cities

Residents of communities on the Canada-U.S. border are accustomed to running back and forth across the international boundary — to visit family and friends, to enjoy a favorite restaurant, to bargain-shop for gasoline and milk.

But ongoing restrictions at the border spurred by the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to those trips in March, leaving many of those towns financially strapped and socially isolated from their foreign neighbors as Covid-19 cases continue to stay high in the U.S.

Few places better encapsulate how the virus changed the way of life for residents of many border towns than Niagara Falls, the sister cities in western New York and Ontario, Canada. The cities have long served as an international tourist destination.

Western New York has seen a recent uptick in Covid-19 cases, with Niagara County reporting 39 active cases as of Thursday morning. The Niagara public health region of Ontario had just 15 active cases.

POLITICO spoke to the mayors of the two border cities — Robert Restaino of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Jim Diodati of Niagara Falls, Ontario — to learn how the limitations on border crossings are affecting their communities.

The interviews were conducted separately in late August, but both mayors were asked similar questions. Here’s their perspective on a global emergency that’s uniquely affected their hometowns.

Tourist towns grappling with the tourist season that wasn’t

Diodati: It’s eerie here in Niagara Falls. We’re the No. 1 leisure destination in Canada. Typically, we get 14 million people coming to us. We’ve got four border crossings in Niagara and 40,000 people who utilize tourism to put food on the table, to pay their rent, pay their mortgage, pay their education. And we’ve had a lot of things — we've had 9/11, we’ve had SARS, H1N1, mad cow, currency fluctuations — we've had lots of different challenges over the years, but nothing even remotely close to this.

Restaino: We get an awful lot of international tourists, and so with the difficulties obviously with international travel, particularly into and out of the U.S., that’s a large portion of what would ordinarily be the tourist population that comes in during the tourist period. The other thing that’s been difficult, too, have been the various travel advisories that have gone on for many of the states throughout the United States coming into and out of New York State.

Diodati: In the past, you didn’t think twice about crossing the border. And after 9/11, you had to carry ID and passports and the whole world changed, and now it’s shut right down unless you’re an essential service provider. And right now, everyone’s OK with that because they’re just saying tighten up your borders, keep your bubbles. … Let’s keep our borders closed right now, let’s get a handle on what’s going on.

We just recently in the last few weeks hit some of our best crowds all summer. Having said that, I’d say we’re probably up to 40 or 50 percent crowds now of what we would normally have, but, compared to what we had when it was terrible, you were waiting for a tumbleweed to blow across the road. There was nothing.

Restaino: I can tell you, living in Western New York and most specifically living in Niagara Falls, it’s really like just an extension of another neighborhood separated by the river. There are folks on both sides of the border that have family, there are favorite restaurants and stores that both sides of the border take advantage of. And with the closure, which has now been extended, it seems that that’s more than just a tourist issue — that's really continuing commerce. That's something that’s really affected the local economy quite a bit.

Taking an economic hit

Restaino: Sales tax, hotel, restaurant and utility tax — all of those things that are fundamental pieces of our revenue here in the city — have all been impacted substantially over the course of these last several months. If gas prices are cheaper in Canada, you’ll have a lot of the American folks going over there to purchase gasoline and vice versa.

It really is just another neighborhood separated by the river, and that portion of the economy is substantial when you think about just the ease with which we travel back and forth between one another, so a lot of the shopping, a lot of the restaurants, certainly some of the other just normal day-to-day things that are part of everyone’s life both on this side of the border and on the Canadian side has been curtailed. And we have substantially suffered $4 million or $5 million depending on the category in terms of losses throughout this period.

Diodati: Here in Ontario, all municipalities have been deemed an essential service, so you must maintain your services. … But at the same time, a lot of people are not able to pay their property taxes, so we’re absorbing that hit. And on the other end, we’re not allowed to carry forward an operating deficit. So, you can’t have a deficit, but you don’t have all your money coming in, but you have to keep operating.

Luckily, our upper levels of government have made some announcements that they’re helping us to plug those gaps, and that’s been really helpful. There was a shortfall of around C$4 million for the municipality so far, but we’ve deferred property taxes, and it’s not as bad residentially. But commercially, it’s going to be a challenge, because we’re very heavily weighted toward commercial because of all the hotels, all of the attractions, and they pay big taxes.

Resiliency is part of our DNA, so we’re used to dealing with challenges and adverse conditions. Of course, none like this, but we know we’re going to come out of it because we have to. Failure is not an option.

Restaino: We have to look at the services we provide and find out whether or not that same menu of services is something that the city can provide at a reasonable cost to taxpayers. It’s easy for some on the outside looking in to say that there are other ways to raise this revenue — property taxes, etc. See, nobody’s to blame for this. And so for us to put the burden on taxpayers to try and support what has been a loss of revenue I think is unfair to our small businesses, it’s unfair to our residents. We need to find a way to make that work.

Frayed social ties

Restaino: I have aunts and uncles, cousins that live just across the river, who has a wedding planned or who has had a baby and there’s a baptism scheduled or there’s a birthday party for a child or for one of our senior relatives. Those things are all postponed. I find myself Zooming into events with my family now, so it’s really been difficult from a personal perspective because we’re used to being able to just go.

Diodati: My mom and dad, every Thursday, they go over the river. That’s what we call it when you live on the border, and that’s what they call it in Windsor, too. … You don’t really appreciate something truly until you lose it. So the silver lining in this big gray cloud is that we’ve come to appreciate things we’ve taken for granted, and we do, we’re spoiled here.

Restaino: There are people here in Niagara Falls that own properties in Canada along the lake, and they’ve just not been able to get to them. Some of them have tried all kinds of creative ways of inventing why they should be able to go but consistently have been turned back at the border.

Policy suggestions for reopening the border — and helping border towns

Diodati: I think there needs to be a way to do it. If I was going to come up with a common-sense approach to it, I'd say something like, you have to have a Covid test within 48 hours of crossing the border. Something like that, so you have Covid results that you can show, I’m clean, I’m clear, I’m safe, so I’m going to see my fiancé or inspect my cottage.

I just don’t think it’s been a priority because everybody’s been nervous. They don’t want to make the wrong decision and then wear it because you screwed things up — you allowed this. If you notice the politicians, they’re letting the medical health people make the decisions because this way if it backfires — it's not me, it was the expert.

Restaino: Some of the things that we talk about obviously are pretty broad-based — relief for local governments in terms of some way of assisting local governments with the expenses or revenue losses. ... We also are talking about a regional approach toward the border in an effort to try and see if some of us can open up our commerce and trade with our Canadian neighbors.

I know from talking with Congressman [Brian] Higgins’ office, they bring these things to the table, they’re advocating and obviously I think that the national conversation about aid to state and local governments is one that’s been going on now since Congress passed their bill. … While that will help us bridge our losses in this year, that still doesn’t eliminate our need to have the border opened again.

What it will take to relax restrictions

Diodati: Our thinking is aligned, and we want to make the right decision. And it’s hard when you don’t have a crystal ball to know what it is — when's the vaccine going to come, is it going to work — there's so many questions because nobody quite knows.

I think right now, given the fact that, early November, there’s going to be a U.S. federal election, we’re trying to stay out of the politics of the United States. … So, we’re thinking at this point, just leave the borders, don’t touch anything, let’s get through this election, let’s not be a reason for having an impact one way or the other. We just want to stay right out of it. And then, when would it be after that? It depends I guess on who wins — that’ll be a big factor — and how it plays out, and the vaccine, when it comes out.

I’d say probably in the New Year. I think realistically that’s probably when we’re looking at it, all things considered.

Restaino: The United States has to get a better handle on the pandemic and the growth of cases and the spread. Because otherwise, what’s happening, we’re the ones actually creating the disincentive to have that border open. We're all trying to push for some type of regional approach where it’s not the whole several-thousand-mile border, but that’s not getting a lot of traction because obviously once you open one spot, it becomes a porous border again. I think everyone is really trying to avoid what could be just a rebirth of the original months of this thing.

Diodati: I think a lot of people, as soon as the vaccine is out and it’s proven, they’re going to be lined up at the border itching to come over. ... I think we’re going to bounce back. We’re going to be fine. It’s going to be a little bit of a dimmer-switch approach to bouncing back, but I think we’ll surprise people with how quick that we’re able to, because people still need to have fun. They’ve been serious, they’ve been stressed, they’ve been full of cortisol and anxiety, and they’re looking for more serotonin, more fun.

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Could LeBron James Defeat Donald Trump?

When the National Basketball Association’s players walked off the court en masse last week to protest the killing of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the move was so unprecedented that writers couldn’t decide on what to call it. Was it a “boycott”? A plain old “strike?” Or, more specifically, a “wildcat strike”?

The semantics are less important than the substance. As ESPN’s Domonique Foxworthy recently pointed out, “kneeling doesn’t make anybody uncomfortable anymore.” The NBA was already the league’s most overtly activist league, but the post-Kenosha climate forced its (predominantly Black) players beyond symbolic gestures to a standoff that’s rolled up corporate bottom lines, the largest social justice movement since the civil rights era, and a presidential election into a debate so hot-button it’s practically nuclear. The tense 48 hours that followed the beginning of the strike saw players threatening to end the already precarious playoffs, accosting the head of the players’ union, and consulting with former President Barack Obama on the uncomfortable realpolitik of social justice in Donald Trump's America.

After all that, the players secured a series of concessions that include a new league-sponsored “social justice coalition,” an agreement that team and arena owners would work to convert their stadiums into “mass-voting locations” this November, and the production of new ads “promoting civic engagement in local and national elections and raising awareness about voter access and opportunity.”

Such measures aren't just PR sops meant to placate the “shut up and dribble” crowd. The world of sports broadcasting is notoriously gun-shy when it comes to politics — even when those expressions of political belief are symbolic rather than electoral. All of which makes what NBA players have accomplished here unprecedented.

As the coronavirus pandemic and voter suppression tactics threaten to depress turnout in the very cities across America that have been rocked by the violence and injustice, the NBA will expand voting access and participation. The stadiums that will double as polling stations aren’t just in safely blue states, they’re in places with down-ballot and Electoral College ramifications—Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia.

In light of the strike’s shocking nature and its just-as-shockingly quick resolution, it’s easy to miss the elegant genius of what it accomplished. For all their carping about voter fraud, Trump and his Greek chorus in conservative media are hard-pressed to argue against measures to promote in-person voting. Or, now that players are back on the court, to complain about spoiled millionaires hypocritically shirking their duties while the poor, average fan suffers through quarantine with nothing to keep them company but Formula 1 on tape delay.

The NBA playoffs resumed seamlessly this week, but the decision wasn’t without its critics on the left—specifically with regard to the influence of Barack Obama, the Bernie-verse’s bugbear of perceived half-stepping. When the news broke that Obama counseled players to return to the court with concessions, responses ranged from “are you fucking kidding me” to jokes about Larry Summers and Richard Branson to the evergreen, sarcastic “thanks obama.”

The snark elides how the NBA throwing its weight behind voting access could have a huge impact on this fall’s elections—and, therefore, the near-future not only of criminal justice reform, but of any number of longtime progressive priorities. In 2018, unprecedented midterm turnout led to a slew of liberal reformers winning office up and down the ballot, even in places not usually known for their progressive zeal. Take Houston, where Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo led a wave of Democrats who swept Republicans out of the county’s courts and are now remaking its criminal justice system in their own image. Or Nevada, where its attorney general, Aaron Ford, has pushed for greater state oversight of local police.

Black voters who bear the brunt of America’s dysfunctional criminal justice system are more wary than their White counterparts of voting by mail, potentially hampering such initiatives in a pandemic-constrained election cycle. Critics of Obama-style electoralism fixate on the first part of the former president’s famous “Don’t boo, vote” exhortation, painting him as a counter-revolutionary wet blanket. On behalf of their communities, the striking NBA players put their money—quite literally—on the latter part, bending league ownership to their will in what could be a game-changing twist in this November’s elections.

Even before the current state of affairs forced the league’s biggest star to dial up a former president for counsel, LeBron James heralded a new wave of NBA activism with the founding of the “More Than a Vote” nonprofit in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in late May. The group’s explicitly stated goal was to combat apathy among Black voters, something experts say has been instilled by years of anti-democratic measures to suppress voter access.

Hannah Klain, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, described the measures as promising after nearly a decade of renewed voter suppression efforts.

“It’s exciting as someone who works in this field to see people who maybe in the past, haven't been as engaged, get really fired up about elections, and administering them faithfully, and having people vote,” Klain said. “The ennui and the disillusionment are the point [of voter suppression]; they’re counting on people to lose faith in the system.”

So far, James’ A-team assembled to fight said ennui includes stars like Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes, comedian and movie star Kevin Hart, and R&B singer Toni Braxton. But despite their combined followings and the wealth of evidence showing how inner-city voters are discouraged from going to the polls, an obvious, Occam’s razor-style question lingers: Will the celebrities’ do-gooding messages aimed at boosting participation actually … do any good?

In the late 1990s, Yale political scientists Alan Garber and Donald Green decided to test a simple thesis about the tools of the political Stone Age. Were the then-standard contents of a campaign’s bag of tricks, namely direct mail and phone campaigns, really effective in getting voters to the polls? Analyzing voters in four groups that each received nonpartisan “nudges” of escalating intensity, they found that among all the tools available to political operatives at the time, only old-fashioned in-person canvassing had any effect on likeliness to vote.

Pols seized on the findings immediately, whispering in campaigns’ ears that they were wasting money on outdated tech when they could be marching merrily into a broadcast- and email-dominated future. In 2008, Green and UCLA’s Lynn Vavreck published an oft-cited study in the academic journal Political Analysis that measured the effectiveness of America’s most well-known and frequently-mocked get-out-the-vote effort of the modern era: MTV’s “Rock the Vote” campaign aimed at young voters.

Green and Vavreck analyzed the effect of such ads during the 2004 presidential election, finding that where they aired, young voters were more likely to turn out by 2.7 percentage points. Crucially, Green himself recently told Vox that such ads are effective only when they’re focused specifically on turnout, without a partisan message—exactly like those NBA viewers will experience until the last game of its playoffs in mid-October.

James Druckman, a political scientist at Northwestern University who has studied voter behavior and psychology extensively, pointed to “Rock the Vote” as the closest comparison to the NBA’s current efforts. He cautioned, however, that like so many other aspects of politics, the hyperpartisan nature of today’s media climate could blunt those efforts’ cumulative effect.

“I suspect that if people still perceive there to be nonpartisan actors who engage in mobilization, that these methods would work during this election cycle,” Druckman said. “The question is the extent to which people believe anyone involved in politics is not politicized these days.”

In that light, then, a higher-percentage play might be the NBA’s commitment to materially expanding voting access for residents of the league’s 30 cities, most of which trend poorer and blacker, and are more vulnerable to the violence players are protesting than their surrounding areas. (The Toronto Raptors are lobbying to help U.S. expats vote absentee.) As of this writing, The Associated Press reports that at least 20 teams have already announced concrete plans to set up voting centers at their arenas. Depending on the state, voters will be able to potentially vote early, register to vote or actually vote at those arenas on Election Day.

Klain said those efforts are promising, but that team owners and league officials should prepare for a heavy bureaucratic lift.

“I’ve been both sort of excited and, frankly, nervous, because running any polling place is complicated,” Klain said. “Particularly this year, we’re expecting really high turnout across the board, and making sure that these spaces … are ready to handle that kind of volume will be so critical.”

As Druckman alluded to, the ads meant to drive voters to those spaces don’t explicitly point them left or right. They’re thoroughly nonpartisan and pro-small ”d” democracy, which makes them palatable to otherwise skittish team owners. But the young, policy-motivated voters who have helped drive progressive reforms across the country are surely paying attention to races like the ones listed above, and the NBA’s pro-Black Lives Matter messaging is thoroughly aligned with them. If those voters can be nudged even by Green and Vavreck’s 2.7 percent, it could have major ramifications.

All of this isn’t to uncritically cheerlead for the NBA. Opinions within the league on its return to play were reportedly so divergent that they encompassed those of the eventual deal’s anti-electoralist critics, and NBA leadership has a history of ditching its social justice rhetoric when it might jeopardize the bottom line. But real money and pride were at stake in these negotiations; the season’s total cancellation would have materially harmed arena staff and all-stars alike. Whether or not you agree with the players’ goals, their sincerity in this case cannot be questioned.

So laugh at Obama (and by proxy, it should be noted, James and his collaborators) all you want. It only takes a glance out the window to observe that Americans of all stripes are energized—honestly, inflamed—as much as they have been since the civil rights era. Obama, James and their fellow leaders are fully aware of that, and they’re prepared to leverage it toward their goals.

The election season, then, can be compared to “crunch time” in the NBA, the last few minutes in a tight game, when every move counts and the record books are settled. Whatever happens this November, NBA players’ pro-democracy activism will ensure that they and their followers will at least be on the court for it, while their detractors sullenly look on from the bench.

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Hong Kong police arrest 90 at protests over election delay

HONG KONG — At least 90 people were arrested Sunday at protests against the government’s decision to postpone elections for Hong Kong’s legislature, police and a news report said.

The elections were to have taken place Sunday but Chief Executive Carrie Lam on July 31 postponed them for one year. Lam blamed an upsurge in coronavirus cases, but critics said her government worried the opposition would gain seats if voting went ahead on schedule.

Anti-government protests have been held in Hong Kong almost every weekend since June 2019. They erupted over a proposed extradition law and spread to include demands for greater democracy and criticism of Beijing’s efforts to tighten control over the former British colony.

On Sunday, one woman was arrested in the Kowloon district of Yau Ma Tei on charges of assault and spreading pro-independence slogans, the police department said on its Facebook page. It said such slogans are illegal under the newly enacted National Security Act.

The ruling Communist Party’s decision to impose the law in May prompted complaints it was violating the autonomy promised to the territory when it was returned to China in 1997. Washington withdrew trading privileges granted to Hong Kong and other governments suspended extradition and other agreements on the grounds that the territory of 7 million people is no longer autonomous.

Also Sunday, police fired pepper balls at protesters in Kowloon’s Mong Kok neighborhood, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

At least 90 people were arrested, most of them on suspicion of illegal assembly, the police department said on a separate social media account.

In the Jordan neighborhood, protesters raised a banner criticizing the election delay, the Post said.

“I want my right to vote!” activist Leung Kwok-hung, popularly known as Long Hair, was quoted as saying. The newspaper said Leung was later arrested.

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Trump deploys YouTube as his secret weapon in 2020

In 2016, Donald Trump’s campaign cracked the code on Facebook as a campaign tool — gaining an advantage over Hillary Clinton that was little noticed at the time but helped propel him to victory.

This time, the president is betting big on YouTube.

Most campaigns merely post their television spots on the site. Trump's YouTube channel, however, is a voluminous and unique collection of news, campaign ads and original web shows. Negative ads like "Don't let them ruin America" are paired with livestreamed series such as "Black Voices for Trump: Real Talk Online!" and "The Right View." The campaign uploads and then tests hundreds of short videos of the president speaking, while also posting news clips about things like the jobs report and the recent Serbia-Kosovo deal.

As Trump’s reelection effort pulled back on television advertising over the past month, it is pouring money and staff time into Google’s video platform. The campaign and its joint fund with the Republican National Committee have spent over $65 million on YouTube and Google — about $30 million of it since July. Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee joint committee, by comparison, have spent about $33 million on YouTube and Google during the entire campaign. (Google doesn’t provide an exact breakdown of the spending, but the Trump campaign said most of the money was for YouTube as opposed to search ads.)

With Biden ahead in the polls and quickly catching up in overall fundraising, Trump’s campaign sees YouTube as a potential soft spot in the Democrat's effort and is trying to press its advantage. Trump's campaign has also devoted significant resources to generating organic content on YouTube — regular videos uploaded by supporters as opposed to ones it pays to promote. In August, the campaign posted nearly 900 videos, while the Biden campaign posted just over 100.

Many digital strategists say YouTube's algorithm is more likely to recommend to viewers channels that are updated regularly with new content. “The name of the game with algorithms is to flood the zones,” said Eric Wilson, a veteran Republican digital operative. “The Trump campaign is putting on a master class in advertising according to algorithms — it just rewards the side that will produce more content.”

Still, the Trump campaign says it sees YouTube as an underappreciated campaign asset, much like it viewed Facebook four years ago. YouTube is the most popular online platform in the country: More than 9 of 10 Americans age 18 to 29 uses it, according to Pew surveys, a higher share than Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. And the Trump campaign said it has seen engagement with its YouTube channel rise significantly among 25- to 34-year-olds.

Trump campaign advisers said Facebook was almost always a better campaign tool than YouTube in 2016 given its powerful targeting abilities and the lack of public scrutiny around them. But as Democrats have caught up on Facebook and the platform's every move is dissected, Trump officials say YouTube has been more effective at times than Facebook at mobilization, fundraising and persuasion in 2020. YouTube has also become increasingly influential force on the internet generally.

That’s why the campaign has ramped up its spending so dramatically on YouTube after spending less than $10 million on it in 2016.

Still, Republican and Democratic strategists disagree over whether the expensive gambit will work. Some Democrats see the frenetic activity on YouTube as more Kabuki theater rather than anything meaningful for November. Other Democratic digital strategists say the power of YouTube shouldn’t be underestimated but they argue that Trump’s investment comes from a place a weakness.

“The conditions on the ground — record unemployment and 180,000 Covid deaths — strongly favor Biden. So the Trump campaign has to create a more positive narrative to keep their supporters engaged and energized,” said Nu Wexler, a Democratic strategist who has worked at Google, Facebook and Twitter. "YouTube hype videos is one way to do that, though their content is completely at odds with reality.”

The Trump campaign's YouTube strategy is also the latest example of it becoming its own news publisher, bypassing the established media. Many of the campaign’s videos are short news clips or snippets of the press secretary’s daily briefing.

Trump's focus on the platform was apparent during the party conventions. The campaign spent millions to dominate YouTube's homepage during all four days of the Democratic convention. Its ad blitz drew 40 million views to five new ads, and 93 percent of the watch-time came from nonsubscribers. The campaign told POLITICO that its videos has 509 million views over the past four months.

Trump's campaign was also more aggressive in how it used the platform. Whereas Democrats uploaded the former vice president’s entire convention speech, Trump's campaign spliced his into 28 clips, each posted to YouTube. Republicans did the same thing with nearly every other major speech, while Democrats uploaded their speeches in full.

A Trump campaign official said the post-heavy approach is important for testing, and argued that the increased volume is better for users and for sharing.

Biden campaign officials downplayed the notion that Trump has outfoxed them on YouTube. “I don't see that as a silver bullet,” said Patrick Bonsignore, Biden's director of paid media. "It feels to me like their programs are more heavily weighted towards the direct response and fundraising side of things," rather than persuasion. In other words, communicating to Trump’s base rather than expanding it.

The recent investment has made Trump’s YouTube following the largest of any politician in the country, surpassing Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama, who had larger followings until a few months ago. Since April, the Trump campaign’s YouTube channel has grown from about 327,000 subscribers to nearly a million. Biden’s campaign, which spent a negligible amount on YouTube during the primary, has gone from 32,000 subscribers to 173,000. The campaign has been doing more on the platform recently and premiered a "socially distanced conversation" between Biden and Kamala Harris last week that had over 170,000 views.

Aware of the gap and the unlikeliness of closing it by Election Day, however, Biden’s campaign has been trying to appear on other popular social channels to leverage their large followings. Earlier this week, Harris made a cameo in a “Verzuz” battle between Brandy and Monica that streamed on Instagram and had over 4 million views. The Biden team also takes pride in the advertising it has been doing on less discussed platforms like Hulu and Pandora, where it believes it has an edge.

“I feel really confident that our program is more [varied] in terms of the number of places that we're running ads,” Bonsignore said. “That [YouTube] playbook is certainly not the whole game.”

The Biden campaign also has some backup on YouTube courtesy of the Priorities USA super PAC. It has spent an additional $5 million on the platform, much more than any Trump-affiliated super PAC so far.

Even with the tens of millions being thrown into the video platform, Republican and Democratic consultants are divided on how much of it will matter. Google last year began limiting political advertisers’ ability to target audiences: They can do so by age, gender and location, but are barred from using political affiliation or voter records to identify potential supporters.

Also, YouTube subscribers also haven’t always translated into wins at the ballot box — Sanders trounced Biden on YouTube, only to fall to him in the primary.

Still, the Trump campaign has already signaled it will maintain a robust presence on YouTube through November. The campaign has already reserved the most expensive digital ad space in the country on Election Day: YouTube’s homepage.

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