Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee designed to help Democratic organizations, recorded this amount over a two-day period, according to a real-time tracker developed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. Although these figures are not officially validated—being based on ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker since its inception in 2004—they offer insight into the group’s fundraising efforts ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign launch, making it the largest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in donations allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total fundraising since it began operations 20 years ago. In contrast, WinRed, which serves as the fundraising platform for Republicans and launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm on social media, noting an influx of first-time donations over the past 24 hours, which they see as an encouraging sign of grassroots support.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within a day following Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. The organization Swing Left also reported raising over $160,000 within 24 hours for the future Democratic nominee.
Monetary support for Harris’s campaign was bolstered by remarks from Evercore founder Roger Altman, who stated Monday that he anticipates her campaign will be “very well financed.” Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also shown their support for Harris.
Biden’s prior high points in fundraising were noted after debates, particularly following his defeat to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he raised around $28 million in a short span. He also secured $19.2 million following Trump’s indictment on 34 felony counts, while Trump’s campaign raised $69 million in the immediate aftermath of his conviction in late May, briefly causing a crash of his campaign website. Additionally, the super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., collected $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations brought in $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups garnered $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million at his disposal compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.