Just a day following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not pursue re-election, the Democratic Party successfully raised $100 million from donors via its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee facilitating fundraising for Democratic organizations, recorded this significant amount over a two-day period, as reflected in a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project. Although this sum is not officially verified, it is derived from ActBlue’s mega-tracker that has been tallying donations since 2004, giving insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million to support the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the largest single-day fundraising event for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in the first presidential debate.
This surge in donations allowed ActBlue to surpass a total of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican counterpart to ActBlue which began in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement over the influx of donations, 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, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement, which included his endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which has created a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, announced that it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, mentioned on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and he pledged his support to her. Major Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also expressed their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden’s strongest fundraising days occurred after he experienced a significant defeat from Trump during a televised debate on June 27, where Biden and his associated committees raised about $28 million over the next day. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump’s campaign and allied groups collectively raised $69 million shortly after the conviction, leading to a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. Additionally, an aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups collected $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups garnered $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden’s campaign had $281 million available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.