Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising tool for Democratic organizations, saw this substantial influx over the previous two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not official and is based on ActBlue’s own tracker of donations since 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of the required disclosure reports.
On Sunday alone, contributors provided $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, making it the largest fundraising day thus far in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The second-highest donation day occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to the tracker.
As a result of the donation surge on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue stated on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday afternoon, “We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first ever donation in the last 24 hours! It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same time frame.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and offered his support. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also shown their backing for Harris.
Notably, Biden previously experienced significant fundraising days following major political events, such as after he was soundly defeated by Donald Trump in a televised debate on June 27, leading to approximately $28 million raised by Biden and his committees in the following day. Additionally, Biden raised $19.2 million after Trump faced 34 felony counts. In contrast, during the same period, Trump and his associated groups raised $69 million following his conviction on May 30, with an aligned super PAC garnering $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden entities raised $332.4 million, while their pro-Trump counterparts raised $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.