Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, the Democratic Party raised an impressive $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform dedicated to Democratic groups, reported this total over a span of two days, according to a live tracker created by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. Though this figure is unofficial and relies on ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker since 2004, it gives insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to the kickoff of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day of the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The next most significant fundraising day occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in donations on Sunday enabled ActBlue to reach a milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has raised about $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many people reported making their first donation following Biden’s announcement. The platform expressed motivation at seeing new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement.
In the wake of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, the super PAC Future Forward secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her candidacy. Notable Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, are also backing Harris.
Historically, Biden’s strongest fundraising days occurred immediately after he faced a significant defeat against Donald Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when Biden and his teams collected about $28 million from June 27 to June 28, according to a New York Times analysis.
Furthermore, Biden raised $19.2 million in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts. In contrast, Trump and his aligned entities amassed $69 million from May 30 to May 31 following his conviction. This influx of donations even caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, groups supporting Biden collected $332.4 million, while pro-Trump factions raised $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden held $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.