That’s what led Biden to a live-streamed “family town hall” last Sunday night with a trio of YouTube family vloggers who have a combined 3.8 million subscribers. The Biden campaign’s renewed efforts amid the pandemic have come with growing pains: The former vice president awkwardly started off by telling them, “You have really great podcasts,” and the vloggers didn’t post videos about the event on their own channels, restricting Biden to his smaller subscriber base of just 21,500. The Biden campaign told POLITICO that "those who participated are amplifying the event on their own channels" but did not respond when asked for examples.

Still, the Biden’s campaign knows YouTube “is an essential platform for us,” one adviser said.

“‘LeftTube’ has two problems: One is volume and the other is content, neither of which it seems close to solving on its own,” said Stefan Smith, the former online engagement director for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. If the party doesn’t ensure that organic YouTube content is getting attention “in addition to paid digital [advertising], then we are in trouble.”

Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House aide and co-host of the popular Pod Save America podcast, agreed that “Democrats need to step up their game when it comes to YouTube.” For young people, Vietor continued, “YouTube is primarily a search engine. And more often than not when you search for political news or topics, you end up getting force-fed right-wing garbage instead of objective news and information.”

Some on the left are trying to change that. Crooked Media — Pod Save America’s home — has tripled its YouTube output in March. And the teenagers who ran former Sen. Mike Gravel’s shitposting, left-wing presidential campaign in 2019 — which attracted over 67,000 donors, outpacing 10 other Democratic candidates — are turning “The Gravel Institute” into what they are calling a “progressive PragerU” that’s set to launch this summer after securing over $120,000 in initial funding from tech-oriented donors like David Karp, the founder of Tumblr.

“In 2015, I think we saw a pretty notable shift away [on YouTube and Facebook] from connection and towards attention, and I think people on the right and the president have been aided by that shift in the way the platforms operate,” said Andrew Gauthier, the former director of digital content for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and the former head of Buzzfeed Video. “I also think that people in politics really ignore YouTube for the most part. In my experience, for D.C. people it’s cable news and Twitter and that’s it.”

While Facebook has earned more scrutiny for its impact on U.S. politics, American adults report using YouTube more than any other online platform, with 73 percent saying they use it, according to Pew Research Center’s 2018 and 2019 surveys on social media use. It is even more popular with 18 to 29 year olds, with over 90 percent of that cohort saying they use the site — even higher rates than Instagram and Snapchat.