Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, recorded this amount over the past two days, according to a real-time tracker developed by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While the figure is not official and is based on ActBlue’s internal tracking of total donations since 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of any required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign reached $66.9 million, marking the largest fundraising day in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous record was set on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate.
With the significant boost in donations on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date.
ActBlue expressed excitement about the surge in new donors, stating on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many individuals reported making their first-ever donation within the last 24 hours. This influx of small-dollar donors is seen as an encouraging sign for 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 and subsequent endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, the founder of Evercore, commented on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed,” and he expressed his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Previously, Biden’s most successful fundraising periods occurred immediately after his defeat by Trump in a televised debate on June 27, when he and his committees raised about $28 million in a short span. Following Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million. In comparison, Trump and his affiliated groups garnered $69 million on the day of his conviction and the following day, briefly overwhelming his campaign website. An associated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $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.