Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised an impressive $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that facilitates donations for Democratic organizations, documented this considerable sum over the past two days, according to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While this figure is not official and is based on ActBlue’s mega-tracker initiated in 2004, it offers a glimpse into the group’s fundraising activities before required disclosures are submitted.
On Sunday, donors contributed a remarkable $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the highest single-day fundraising event in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The second-largest fundraising day in recent memory was September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump engaged in their first presidential debate.
The surge in donations helped ActBlue reach $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising counterpart established in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion during its operation, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue remarked on social media, expressing excitement over the influx of first-time donors in the previous 24 hours. They emphasized how encouraging it is to see new small-dollar contributors joining the grassroots movement.
Following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from major backers within a day. Similarly, Swing Left, which launched a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated 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 for Harris.
Historically, Biden’s significant fundraising moments occurred immediately after he faced a loss to Donald Trump in a televised debate on June 27, which saw Biden and his committees raise around $28 million from that day through June 28, according to a New York Times analysis.
In the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliated groups amassed $69 million in a single day following his conviction. This wave of donations caused a temporary shutdown of Trump’s campaign website. Additionally, the super PAC associated with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, while those supporting Trump gathered $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.