Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not be pursuing re-election, Democrats raised $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic organizations, recorded this impressive sum over the last two days, as noted by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, who tracks donations live. While this figure is not official, it offers insight into ActBlue’s fundraising performance ahead of required financial disclosures.
On Sunday, the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign attracted $66.9 million in donations, marking the most significant single-day fundraising event for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The second-highest fundraising day in recent history occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This surge in contributions led ActBlue to reach an extraordinary milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has amassed about $4.3 billion.
ActBlue remarked on social media that they saw many first-time donors contributing in the wake of Biden’s announcement. “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!” they stated.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in commitments from major donors within 24 hours of the president’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. The organization Swing Left, which has initiated a fund for 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 would be “very well financed” and offered his support. Major Democratic donors George and Alex Soros also expressed their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced strong fundraising days following a debate loss to Trump on June 27, raising about $28 million shortly thereafter. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates garnered $69 million during the same period, briefly crashing Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., brought in $70 million that month.
From April to June, groups supporting Biden raised $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million raised by Trump allies. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand, contrasted with Trump’s $336.2 million.