Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million from donors using its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to Ryan Murphy, a developer with The Marshall Project who maintains a live tracker, ActBlue reported this impressive sum over a two-day period. While the total is not officially sanctioned, it reflects the fundraising activity of the platform since its inception in 2004, offering insights into recent contributions before any formal disclosures are made.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most significant fundraising day for ActBlue in the current 2024 election cycle. The second-highest day for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
As a result of the donations received on Sunday, ActBlue reached a milestone of $14 billion in total funds raised since its creation two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart launched in late 2019, has amassed approximately $4.3 billion in donations, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue highlighted the influx of new small-dollar donors in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, 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 affiliated with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from large donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and subsequent endorsement of Harris. Similarly, Swing Left announced it raised more than $160,000 in the same time frame to support the eventual Democratic nominee.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and confirmed his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most lucrative fundraising days occurred shortly after he faced a defeat against Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when Biden and his committees collected approximately $28 million between that day and June 28, as analyzed by the New York Times.
In another instance, following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million within days, while Trump and his affiliates garnered $69 million from May 30 to May 31. This surge in donations briefly crashed Trump’s campaign website, and an associated super PAC raised $70 million during that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups accumulated $332.4 million, while pro-Trump organizations raised $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.