Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million through their main fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic organizations, recorded this amount over a two-day span, as noted by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, who maintains a live tracker of donations. Although these figures are not official, they offer a glimpse of ActBlue’s fundraising success before any official disclosures are made.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the largest fundraising day of the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for single-day donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
With the surge in donations, ActBlue has now raised a total of $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that started in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion.
A statement from ActBlue noted a significant number of first-time donors joined the movement following Biden’s announcement, stating, “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors.”
In the wake of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors, as reported by Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which set up a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, claimed to have raised over $160,000 within 24 hours.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign, stating it will be “very well financed” and confirmed his support for her. Notable Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced a fundraising boost following his defeat by Trump in a televised debate on June 27, when his campaign and associated committees raised approximately $28 million in just two days. Additionally, he raised $19.2 million in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts. Trump’s campaign reported a substantial influx of donations that temporarily crashed its website after the conviction, raising $69 million over two days, while an affiliated super PAC garnered $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups received $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.