Just a day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, reported this figure over the past two days on a live tracker created by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project. While this total is unofficial and derived from ActBlue’s own records since its inception in 2004, it gives insight into the group’s fundraising efforts ahead of the formal disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to support the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The second highest day for donations recently occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate.
Following the surge in donations on Sunday, ActBlue achieved a milestone of $14 billion raised since it began operations two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion since starting its fundraising efforts, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue noted on X, formerly Twitter, that they had received a significant number of first-time donations in the past 24 hours, expressing excitement about the influx of new small-dollar contributors joining the grassroots movement.
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Meanwhile, Swing Left, which supports the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and confirmed his support for her candidacy. Notable Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also thrown their support behind Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced significant fundraising days following a notable televised debate loss to Trump on June 27, raising around $28 million between then and the following day. Additionally, Biden raised $19.2 million shortly after Trump faced criminal convictions. Trump and his affiliated groups garnered $69 million from May 30 to May 31 following his conviction, causing a temporary crash on his campaign website. The super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that same month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups accumulated $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.