Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised an impressive $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee focused on fundraising for Democratic initiatives, reported this amount over the last two days, based on a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. Although this figure is not an official total, it reflects the fundraising activity ahead of required financial disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donations reached $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, making it the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 cycle on ActBlue. The previous record for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With the influx of donations on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, has raised approximately $4.3 billion since its establishment in late 2019.
“We’ve seen many people say they made their first-ever donation in the last 24 hours!” ActBlue remarked on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s incredibly motivating to see new small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement!”
Future Forward, a super PAC linked to Biden, reportedly received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Additionally, Swing Left, which has created a fund to support the Democratic nominee, stated that it raised over $160,000 in just one day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, commented on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her candidacy. Notably, prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros are also backing Harris.
In previous fundraising efforts, Biden had notable successes immediately after significant events. After he faced former president Donald Trump in a debate on June 27, Biden and his committees raised about $28 million from that day into the following day, according to a New York Times analysis. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million within days, while Trump and his affiliates garnered $69 million in a similar timeframe, leading to a brief crash of Trump’s campaign website.
In total, between April and June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden reported having $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.