Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic organizations, saw this substantial inflow over a two-day period, as tracked by developer Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. Although this figure is unofficial—based on ActBlue’s internal tracking system—it offers insight into the group’s fundraising efforts ahead of upcoming required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions totaled $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most successful fundraising day of the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The second highest day for donations in recent history occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
With this recent surge, ActBlue has now raised a total of $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue stated on social media that many individuals claimed to have made their first donations in the last 24 hours, expressing excitement about new small-dollar donors joining their grassroots movement.
In a separate report, 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 support for Harris. Furthermore, Swing Left, which established a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Evercore founder Roger Altman stated that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support. Notable Democratic megadonors George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Biden previously experienced significant fundraising days right after being decisively outmatched by Trump during a debate on June 27, raising around $28 million in the following 24 hours. After Trump faced criminal charges on 34 felony counts, Biden collected $19.2 million in the days that followed, while Trump and his affiliated groups amassed $69 million from May 30 to May 31, leading to a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. Trump’s aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., also raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations gathered $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups accumulated $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had approximately $281 million available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.