Just one day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not pursue re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from contributors through their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee focused on fundraising for Democratic organizations, recorded this amount over two days. While this tally is unofficial, as it is based on ActBlue’s tracking of total donations since its inception in 2004, it offers insights into the group’s fundraising achievements ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, supporters contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking ActBlue’s largest fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
The spike in donations on Sunday enabled ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its establishment two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has garnered approximately $4.3 billion in donations, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement on X, formerly known as 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 aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement, according to Politico. Swing Left, which activated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Evercore founder Roger Altman mentioned on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Previously, Biden saw significant fundraising efforts following his defeats in debates against Trump, including raising around $28 million between June 27 and June 28. After Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges, Biden raised $19.2 million in the days that followed, while Trump and his supporters collected $69 million within a day of his conviction on May 30. The influx of donations temporarily crashed Trump’s campaign website, and his aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump organizations attracted $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.