Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party secured $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee for Democratic initiatives, reported this total over the past two days. While this figure is not officially verified, as it’s based on ActBlue’s donation data since 2004, it indicates the group’s fundraising success ahead of forthcoming disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday, contributions reached $66.9 million in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record was set on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first debate.
The surge in donations allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue remarked on social media that many donors were making their first contributions in the wake of Biden’s announcement, calling it inspiring to see new small-dollar contributors joining the grassroots effort.
Following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, garnered $150 million from major donors within 24 hours. Swing Left, which supports the forthcoming Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed strong support for Harris’s campaign, stating it would be “very well financed.” Democratic heavyweights George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing for her.
In earlier fundraising efforts, Biden saw significant contributions following his defeat by former President Donald Trump in a debate on June 27, raising around $28 million from that day to June 28, as reported by The New York Times.
After Trump faced 34 felony counts, Biden’s campaign collected $19.2 million in the days that followed, while Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million between May 30 and May 31 alone. That influx temporarily caused Trump’s campaign website to crash. His aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
Overall, between April and June, groups supporting Biden amassed $332.4 million, whereas those backing Trump collected $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.