Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million from donors using their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic groups, reported this figure over the past two days, according to a live tracker developed by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While this number isn’t official and is drawn from ActBlue’s total donation tracker established since 2004, it gives insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of any required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donations hit $66.9 million following the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising total for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record for daily donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
As a result of this fundraising surge on Sunday, ActBlue reached a total of $14 billion raised since it was founded two decades ago. Its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which began fundraising in late 2019, has brought in approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue commented on social media about the influx of donations, noting many first-time donors contributed in the last 24 hours, highlighting the increased grassroots support.
Moreover, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in pledges from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to back the eventual Democratic nominee, also reported raising over $160,000 in the same 24-hour period.
Evercore founder Roger Altman expressed confidence in Harris’s financing capabilities and indicated his support for her campaign. Notably, Democratic mega-donors George and Alex Soros have also endorsed Harris.
Previously, Biden saw significant fundraising immediately following a televised debate loss to Trump on June 27, when he and his committees collected about $28 million in just over a day. After Trump faced conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and associated groups gathered $69 million in the two days following his conviction on May 30. This surge of donations even caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website.
Between April and June, groups supporting Biden raised $332.4 million, while those supporting Trump amassed $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.