Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party managed to raise $100 million from donors via its primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee that facilitates fundraising for Democratic organizations, recorded this impressive amount over the past two days. While this figure is not officially verified, it reflects the fundraising activity leading up to the required financial disclosures.
On Sunday, contributors provided $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising event in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous high for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off during their first presidential debate.
As a result of the surge in donations, ActBlue has now raised a total of $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that launched in late 2019, has raised around $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue highlighted a significant increase in contributions from first-time donors, stating, “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!”
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Meanwhile, Swing Left, which supports the upcoming Democratic nominee, announced it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, voiced confidence in Harris’s campaign, stating it would be “very well financed.” Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their support to Harris.
In the past, Biden’s fundraising efforts peaked after key moments, such as when he was publicly outmatched by Trump during a televised debate on June 27, resulting in approximately $28 million in donations. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden secured $19.2 million in donations, while Trump and his associated groups raised $69 million in the two days following his conviction in May. The surge of contributions even caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website.
During the period between April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while their pro-Trump counterparts collected $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.