Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million through its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, this amount was recorded over a two-day period. Although the total is unofficial and based on ActBlue’s internal mega-tracker, it offers insight into the organization’s fundraising results before any mandatory disclosures are submitted.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 cycle. The previous high for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With this latest surge, ActBlue has raised a total of $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which started in late 2019, has garnered approximately $4.3 billion in donations.
ActBlue noted in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many individuals reported making their first-ever contributions within the last day. The organization expressed excitement over the influx of new small-dollar donors joining their grassroots efforts.
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours following Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement. Additionally, Swing Left, a group supporting the ultimate Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his commitment to supporting her. High-profile Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced notable fundraising success soon after being outperformed by Trump during a debate on June 27, raising around $28 million in the following days. He also attracted $19.2 million after Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, while Trump and his affiliates raised $69 million from the day of his conviction through the next day, leading to a temporary crash of his campaign website. In that month, the super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., collected $70 million.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups accumulated $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.