Just one 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 dedicated to fundraising for Democratic initiatives, recorded this significant sum over two days, according to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While this figure is unofficial and based on ActBlue’s cumulative data since 2004, it reflects the group’s fundraising success ahead of required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The second-highest day for donations in recent times occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, as noted by Murphy’s tracker.
As a result of the donation surge on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has raised about $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm over the influx of new donors, 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!”
In addition, 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 endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. The organization Swing Left, which inaugurated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, indicated it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, commented on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support. Notable Democratic mega-donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also pledged their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden’s highest fundraising days occurred after he faced off against Trump during a televised debate on June 27, where he and his committees raised approximately $28 million in the following day. In the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliated groups brought in $69 million in the days surrounding the conviction, even causing a brief crash of his campaign website. An aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden entities raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump organizations garnered $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.