Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, reported this amount over the last two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. Although this figure isn’t officially verified—as it derives from ActBlue’s extensive tracking of total donations since its inception in 2004—it reflects the group’s fundraising success just weeks before any formal disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, contributions totaled $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the highest single-day fundraising in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record was on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
Due to the influx of donations on Sunday, ActBlue reached a milestone of $14 billion raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican donation platform started in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date, as per OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported a surge in first-time donors saying, “We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first-ever donation in the last 24 hours!” This increase reflects a growing grassroots movement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within 24 hours following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which launched a fund to support 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 expressed his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also endorsed Harris.
Biden’s previous notable fundraising days happened immediately after he faced defeat in a debate against former President Donald Trump on June 27, during which he raised around $28 million in the following days. Additionally, Biden secured $19.2 million shortly after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, while Trump and affiliated groups raised $69 million in the two days following his conviction on May 30. Trump’s campaign website briefly crashed due to the surge in donors, and his aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million the same month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups garnered $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups accumulated $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.