Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not be running for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from contributors via its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee designed to support Democratic organizations, reported this impressive total within just two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While these figures are not considered official, they offer insight into fundraising results prior to any mandated reports.
On Sunday alone, donors provided $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking a record day for fundraising in the current 2024 election cycle. This surpassed another significant fundraising day that occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
As a result of the donation surge on Sunday, ActBlue reached a milestone of $14 billion in total donations raised since its inception two decades ago, while its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which started fundraising in 2019, has accumulated about $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm on social media, highlighting that many individuals made their first-ever donations in the past day and celebrating the growing grassroots support for the movement.
In addition, 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 his endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which formed a fund to back the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, commented on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and affirmed his support. Major Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, have also expressed their backing for Harris.
In the past, Biden’s most lucrative fundraising moments occurred after he faced a significant defeat to Trump during a debate on June 27. Following that event, Biden’s campaign and associated groups collected approximately $28 million in just two days. Additionally, Biden raised $19.2 million in the aftermath of Trump’s indictment on 34 felony counts, while Trump’s campaign raised $69 million in the 24 hours following his conviction.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups. By the end of June, Biden had approximately $281 million available, while Trump had $336.2 million.