Just one day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, Democrats generated $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee designed to support Democratic initiatives, reported this total over a two-day period, based on a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this amount is not official, as it is based on ActBlue’s internal tracking of donations since 2004, it offers insights into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of forthcoming disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday alone, contributions surged to $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, representing the largest single-day fundraising effort in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record was set on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
Due to this increase in donations, ActBlue reached a significant milestone, crossing $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that was established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue stated on X, previously known as Twitter, that they had seen numerous individuals making their first donations in the past 24 hours, expressing excitement over the influx of new small-dollar donors joining their grassroots efforts.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from influential donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement, according to Politico. Swing Left, which has initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within that same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed support for Harris’s campaign on Monday, indicating it would be “very well financed.” Democratic benefactors George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Biden’s previous fundraising highlights occurred directly after he faced a significant defeat against Donald Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he and his affiliated committees raised approximately $28 million in just two days. After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the following days, while Trump and his associated groups amassed $69 million from May 30 to May 31, causing a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised another $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups collected $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups brought in $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.