Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party successfully raised $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic initiatives, reported this substantial sum accumulated over the past two days, as indicated by a live tracker from Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is unofficial and derived from ActBlue’s total donation statistics dating back to 2004, it highlights the organization’s fundraising success just weeks before mandatory financial disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, a remarkable $66.9 million was raised to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking it as the most successful single day for fundraising in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. This surpasses previous significant fundraising days, including the second-best day that occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The recent surge in donations allowed ActBlue to reach a milestone of $14 billion in total funds raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart that started in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion in that time.
ActBlue expressed excitement over the new contributors joining the grassroots movement, stating on X, formerly Twitter, that many first-time donors had participated in the recent fundraising push.
In the wake of Biden’s announcement and subsequent endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in fresh commitments from major donors within just 24 hours. Similarly, Swing Left reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe to support the eventual Democratic nominee.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, affirmed on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing for Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most effective fundraising days have been following losses to Trump, notably after a debate on June 27, where his campaign raised approximately $28 million in the following days. Additionally, Biden raised $19.2 million after Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts, while Trump and his associated groups raised $69 million in the days surrounding the conviction.
Between April and June, pro-Biden organizations raised a total of $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups garnered $431.2 million. As of the end of June, Biden’s campaign had $281 million in hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.