Just one day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through their main fundraising platform, ActBlue. This amount was recorded over a period of two days, as noted by a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. Although this figure is unofficial and based on ActBlue’s own tracking of donations since 2004, it offers insights into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for single-day donations was set on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate.
The influx of donations on Sunday allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the fundraising platform for Republicans that started in late 2019, has accumulated approximately $4.3 billion so far.
ActBlue reported on a social media platform that many donors indicated they made their first-ever contributions in the last 24 hours, expressing excitement about the growing grassroots movement of small-dollar donors.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Similarly, Swing Left, which supports the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within 24 hours.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and announced his support. Prominent Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, also endorsed Harris.
Biden’s previous notable fundraising days followed a significant defeat to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, which resulted in approximately $28 million raised between that day and the next. He also raised $19.2 million following Trump’s conviction on felony counts, while Trump and associated groups raised $69 million during the same period, leading to a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. An aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., earned $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups brought in $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups raised $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.