Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, which is a political action committee designed for Democratic fundraising efforts, recorded this amount within two days, as shown by a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project. While this figure is unofficial and relies on ActBlue’s own records dating back to 2004, it offers insights into the organization’s fundraising performance ahead of formal disclosures that are due later.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly launched presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous peak occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With this surge in donations, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, which serves as the fundraising platform for Republicans and began operations in late 2019, has raised about $4.3 billion.
ActBlue announced on X, previously known as Twitter, that many donors reported making their very first contributions in the last 24 hours, highlighting the influx of new small-dollar donors into the grassroots movement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in commitments from major donors within a day of his announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to reports. Swing Left, having set up a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, also reported raising more than $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Notably, prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Previously, following a significant debate loss to Trump on June 27, Biden saw substantial fundraising as well, raising approximately $28 million within a day. After Trump faced 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his associated groups collected $69 million in the immediate days following his conviction. This surge momentarily crashed Trump’s campaign website, and his affiliated super PAC raised an additional $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, and pro-Trump groups amassed $431.2 million, according to reports. At the end of June, Biden had $281 million in his campaign account compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.