Just a day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not be seeking re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to Democrat fundraising efforts, reported the impressive amount collected over the past two days, according to a live tracker by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While the figures are not officially certified, they serve as a preview of the group’s fundraising performance before any mandatory disclosures are released.
On Sunday alone, donations amounted to $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the largest fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous peak occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in donations following Sunday’s events allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the fundraising platform for Republicans established in late 2019, has gathered approximately $4.3 billion.
ActBlue stated on X, formerly Twitter, that they have received numerous messages from first-time donors in the past 24 hours, expressing excitement about the grassroots movement growing.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from significant donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which set up a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising more than $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, remarked that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also endorsed Harris.
Biden’s fundraising efforts previously peaked after he was defeated by Trump in a televised debate on June 27, during which he and his committees collected about $28 million. Biden then raised $19.2 million in the days following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts—a time that also saw Trump and his affiliated groups gathering $69 million within a day.
In the past few months leading up to June, pro-Biden groups secured a total of $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups raised $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.