Just one day after President Joe Biden announced his decision to not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from supporters through its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, this amount was collected over two days. Although the figures are not official, as they derive from ActBlue’s long-term donation tracker, they provide insight into the party’s fundraising efforts ahead of upcoming formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors gave $66.9 million to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record was on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The recent surge in donations allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican counterpart that began operating in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm about the influx of new supporters, noting that many had made their first donations in the last 24 hours. “It’s incredibly motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!” the organization stated on social media.
Meanwhile, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement, according to Politico. Another group, Swing Left, reported raising over $160,000 in that same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, indicated on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be well-funded and publicly endorsed her. High-profile Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also shown their support for Harris.
Historically, Biden has experienced notable fundraising spikes following significant events, such as after being outperformed by Trump in a June debate, which led to approximately $28 million raised in the subsequent days. Biden also gathered $19.2 million after Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts, while Trump and his associated groups garnered $69 million during that same period, causing a temporary crash of his campaign website. An aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million within that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump organizations collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden held $281 million in cash compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.