Just a day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee supporting Democratic causes, reported this amount raised over the last two days. Though the total is not officially verified, it is based on ActBlue’s detailed records since its inception in 2004, offering a preliminary insight into their fundraising efforts prior to mandatory disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the highest fundraising day in the current 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The second-highest day for donations in recent history occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate.
This spike in contributions led ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total cash raised since its founding two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion since its launch, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue commented on the influx of donations, stating, “We’ve seen many people say they made their first-ever donation in the last 24 hours! It’s encouraging to witness new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
Following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours. Additionally, Swing Left, which has established a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced that it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed his belief on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and indicated his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced notable fundraising success after being decisively defeated by Trump during a televised debate on June 27. His campaign and affiliated committees raised approximately $28 million from that date to June 28, according to a New York Times analysis.
In the days following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million. During the same period, Trump and his affiliated organizations collected $69 million from May 30 to May 31, causing a temporary crash of his campaign website due to the sudden influx of donors. The aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised another $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups accumulated $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups received $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden held $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.