Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised an impressive $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic causes, reported this sum over a recent two-day period, as tracked by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. Although the figure is unofficial—gathered from ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker that has been in place since 2004—it offers valuable insight into the organization’s fundraising success before formal reports are issued.
On Sunday alone, contributions amounted to $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, representing the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. This surpasses the previous notable day for donations, which occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s data.
As a result of the donation surge, ActBlue reached a milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception twenty years ago. In contrast, WinRed, which serves as the Republican equivalent and launched in late 2019, has collected roughly $4.3 billion since its establishment.
ActBlue celebrated the influx of new donors, stating on X (formerly Twitter), “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, reportedly garnered $150 million in new commitments from major contributors within a day of Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement. Meanwhile, Swing Left, which has started a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced it raised more than $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be well-funded and confirmed his support for her candidacy. Democratic major donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their support to Harris.
Historically, Biden has seen significant fundraising spikes following critical events. After being defeated by Trump in a televised debate on June 27, Biden and his affiliated committees raised approximately $28 million in the subsequent days. A similar fundraising surge was observed after Trump was convicted on multiple felony counts; Biden raised $19.2 million shortly thereafter, while Trump and his allies collected $69 million from his conviction on May 30 to the following day.
In the broader context of fundraising between April and June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump entities brought in $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.