Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic initiatives, reported this total over the past two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer associated with The Marshall Project. While this amount is not officially recognized—being derived from ActBlue’s own comprehensive donation tracker introduced in 2004—it offers insights into recent fundraising activity prior to the mandatory disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the highest single-day fundraising effort for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record for donations was set on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, as noted by Murphy’s tracker.
With the surge of donations, ActBlue has now achieved $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform established in late 2019, has gathered approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed its excitement on social media, 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!”
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly secured $150 million in new commitments from major contributors within 24 hours of his announcement and Harris’s endorsement, as reported by Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which established a fund supporting the eventual Democratic nominee, stated it raised over $160,000 in just one day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, remarked that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and affirmed his support for her candidacy. Major Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, have also endorsed Harris.
Biden’s previous successful fundraising efforts followed a June 27 debate loss to Trump, where he and his committees raised about $28 million in the subsequent days. Biden also collected $19.2 million shortly after Trump faced 34 felony counts. Trump’s campaign and associated groups raised $69 million from May 30 to May 31 following his conviction, briefly overwhelming his campaign website. The affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised another $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump efforts garnered $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.