A day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party successfully raised $100 million through its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue. This impressive amount was recorded in just two days, according to a tracking tool developed by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While the figure is not official and relies on ActBlue’s own tracking of donations since its inception in 2004, it gives an insight into the fundraising efforts ahead of the required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed an astonishing $66.9 million to kickstart Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the most significant fundraising day for ActBlue in the current election cycle. The previous record for day-of-donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With this sudden influx of donations, ActBlue has now amassed a total of $14 billion in funds over the past two decades. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has raised around $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue noted on X, previously Twitter, that many individuals reported making their first-ever donations within the last 24 hours, highlighting a surge of new small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after his announcement and Harris’s endorsement. Swing Left, which launched a fund to support the upcoming Democratic nominee, also reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and has promised his support. Prominent Democratic donors like George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Biden previously experienced significant fundraising boosts following key events, including raising approximately $28 million after facing off against Trump in a debate on June 27, and $19.2 million in the days following Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts. Trump’s campaign reportedly raised $69 million from the day of his conviction to the following day, causing temporary outages on his campaign website. His affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million. As of late June, Biden had $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.