Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, Democrats raised an impressive $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic entities, recorded this figure within the past two days. While the total is not official, as it is based on ActBlue’s comprehensive tracking of donations since 2004, it offers insights into their fundraising efforts prior to any mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign reached $66.9 million, marking the highest single-day fundraising amount in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for donor contributions 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 raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the fundraising platform for Republicans which began in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm about the influx of new donors, highlighting that many made their first-ever donations in the last 24 hours. “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!” the organization stated on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Biden-aligned super PAC Future Forward secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Additionally, Swing Left, which supports the likely Democratic nominee, announced it raised more than $160,000 in the same 24-hour period.
On Monday, Evercore founder Roger Altman expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and confirmed his support. Prominent Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, are also backing Harris.
Biden’s most successful fundraising days in the past occurred after he faced a loss against former president Donald Trump in a televised debate on June 27, where he and his committees raised around $28 million between June 27 and June 28. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the subsequent days. Conversely, Trump and his supporting groups raised $69 million from the day of his conviction to the following day, leading to a temporary crash of his campaign website. An affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups amassed $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups raised $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.