A day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform. This total was recorded over the past two days on a live tracker maintained by developer Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While the amounts are not official and rely on ActBlue’s donation tracker since 2004, they offer insight into the group’s fundraising efforts ahead of any required disclosures.
On Sunday, contributions reached $66.9 million following the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day of the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous high was recorded on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This surge brought ActBlue’s total fundraising since its inception to $14 billion. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has collected around $4.3 billion since it started, as noted by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported an encouraging response on social media, 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!”
Moreover, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new major donor commitments shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Additionally, Swing Left announced it raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign, declaring it would be “very well financed,” and highlighted backing from major Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros.
Previously, Biden experienced significant fundraising success following a televised debate on June 27, where he raised approximately $28 million in two days. After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in response to the verdict, while Trump’s campaign and affiliated groups garnered $69 million within a day of his conviction.
In the period from April to June, pro-Biden groups raised a total of $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups accumulated $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds available compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.