Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic organizations, reported the fundraising totals over the past two days via a tracker created by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project. Although these figures are unofficial and based on ActBlue’s historical donation data since 2004, they offer early insights into the group’s financial activity ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed an impressive $66.9 million to launch Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total of the 2024 campaign cycle for ActBlue. The second-largest fundraising day in recent years occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
Sunday’s surge pushed ActBlue’s total cash raised since its inception to $14 billion. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that started in late 2019, has amassed approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue stated on X, previously known as Twitter, that many individuals reported making their first-time donations in the last 24 hours, highlighting the excitement of attracting new small-dollar donors to the grassroots movement.
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Additionally, Swing Left, which has established a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, informed Agence France-Presse that it raised over $160,000 in just a day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, indicated on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and announced his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also expressed their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden’s top fundraising days occurred after he faced a significant defeat to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when his committees raised around $28 million over the next day. Biden also garnered $19.2 million following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, while Trump and his associated groups raised $69 million from May 30 to May 31, causing a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. A related super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., brought in $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump entities collected $431.2 million, The Financial Times reported. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.