One day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform that supports Democratic initiatives, recorded this substantial amount over the past two days, as reported by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. Though this figure is not yet official, it is derived from ActBlue’s internal mega-tracker of donations that have been accumulated since 2004, offering a glimpse into their fundraising performance ahead of any mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday, contributors donated $66.9 million towards Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, making it the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle using ActBlue. For context, the previous highest daily donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The remarkable surge in donations on Sunday allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. Comparatively, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that was established in late 2019, has garnered approximately $4.3 billion in total donations, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm over the influx of new contributors, stating on X, previously known as Twitter, that many first-time donors had joined the grassroots movement in the past 24 hours.
Moreover, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which has initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, remarked on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and confirmed his support for her. Notable Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also expressed their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden saw significant fundraising days directly after he faced a loss to former president Trump during a debate on June 27. During that period, Biden and his affiliates raised roughly $28 million. He also raised $19.2 million in the days following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts. In contrast, Trump and his supporting entities collected $69 million from May 30 to May 31 after his conviction. The influx of donors even caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website, while the aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden organizations accumulated $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in cash on hand, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.