Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform. This amount was reported over the past two days, according to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not an official report — being based on ActBlue’s extensive donation history since its inception in 2004 — it still offers insight into fundraising efforts before formal disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, contributions amounted to $66.9 million to kickstart Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the largest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. For comparison, the second largest single-day fundraising event occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, as noted by Murphy’s tracker.
As a result of the considerable inflow of donations that day, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican equivalent launched in late 2019, has accumulated approximately $4.3 billion to date, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm about the surge, stating that many individuals indicated they made their first donation within the last 24 hours, demonstrating a reinvigorated grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, garnered $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Similarly, the group Swing Left reported raising more than $160,000 within 24 hours to support the eventual Democratic nominee.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, commented on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and he expressed his support for her candidacy. Notably, Democratic heavyweights George and Alex Soros have also thrown their support behind Harris.
Historically, Biden’s fundraising peaked following his loss to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, where he and his committees raised approximately $28 million within 24 hours. In the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million. Trump and associated groups collected $69 million from the day of his conviction until the next day, causing a temporary crash of his campaign’s website. Additionally, an aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups accumulated $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the close of June, Biden had $281 million available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.