Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised an impressive $100 million from donors using its primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic groups, recorded this significant total over two days. Although these figures are not official and are based on ActBlue’s donation tracking since its inception, they offer insight into the group’s fundraising performance in the lead-up to required financial disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 cycle. The previous record for daily donations was set on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate, as noted by Murphy’s tracker.
Due to the surge in donations on Sunday, ActBlue achieved a milestone by surpassing $14 billion in total funds raised since its founding two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement regarding the influx of new contributors, stating on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many individuals reported making their first donations in the previous 24 hours, showcasing the growing grassroots movement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, also reported raising over $160,000 within 24 hours.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and affirmed his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also expressed backing for Harris.
Biden’s previous significant fundraising moments occurred following his defeat by Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he and his committees raised around $28 million within a day. He also raised $19.2 million after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, while Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million in the immediate aftermath of his conviction, which briefly crashed his campaign website. The aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations gathered $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden held $281 million compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.