Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, recorded this amount over a span of two days, according to a real-time tracker by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While this figure is unofficial and derived from ActBlue’s total donation records since 2004, it offers a glimpse into recent fundraising successes ahead of any mandated disclosures.
On the previous Sunday alone, donations reached $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the highest single-day fundraising total in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for donations was on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
Due to this influx of contributions, ActBlue achieved a milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican equivalent launched in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported on social media that many individuals made their first donations in the past 24 hours, highlighting a surge in small-dollar donations supporting the grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. The group Swing Left, which has initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 within 24 hours, as reported by Agence France-Presse.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and announced his backing for her candidacy. Notable Democratic mega-donors, including George and Alex Soros, also support Harris.
Previously, Biden’s notable fundraising spikes occurred after a televised debate on June 27, where he was soundly criticized by Trump. Following that event, Biden and his committees raised about $28 million in just over a day. After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the subsequent days, while Trump and his affiliates garnered $69 million in the 24 hours following his conviction. This surge briefly overwhelmed Trump’s campaign website. His affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised an impressive $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden entities raised $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds available, while Trump had $336.2 million.