Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from contributors through their primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic initiatives, documented this amount over a span of two days, as noted by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is based on ActBlue’s internal donation tracker, which has been tracking donations since 2004, it provides insight into recent fundraising efforts before any official disclosures are available.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to launch Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising achievement in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The only day that surpassed this fundraising total in recent history was September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
As a result of the surge in donations, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart, has raised approximately $4.3 billion since starting in late 2019, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported on social media that they received many first-time donations within the past 24 hours, highlighting the growing grassroots movement among small-dollar donors.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, garnered $150 million in new commitments from major contributors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which supports the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated on Monday that Harris’s campaign is expected to be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also thrown their support behind Harris.
Biden’s previous notable fundraising spikes occurred after his performance during a debate against Trump on June 27, when Biden and his affiliated committees raised about $28 million between that day and the following day. This followed a trend where Biden raised $19.2 million shortly after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts. Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million from the time of his conviction on May 30 to May 31, resulting in a surge of donations that briefly crashed Trump’s campaign website. The Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC also raised $70 million during that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups amassed $332.4 million, while pro-Trump entities collected $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.