Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project, the platform recorded this significant sum over just two days. While the total is unofficial and derived from ActBlue’s own records since 2004, it offers a glimpse into the fundraising results ahead of formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donations reached $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, setting a record for the highest single-day fundraising in the 2024 cycle via ActBlue. The previous record for daily donations was during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump on September 30, 2020.
This surge in donations helped ActBlue surpass $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement about the influx of new small-dollar donors, stating on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many contributed for the first time in the last 24 hours.
Following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Biden, reported receiving $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours. Additionally, Swing Left, which backs the upcoming Democratic nominee, 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 confirmed his support for her. Notable Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, have also lent their support to Harris.
Previously, Biden’s fundraising peak occurred right after he was defeated by Trump during a televised debate on June 27, during which he and his committees raised around $28 million. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates collected $69 million in the days immediately following the verdict. Notably, Trump’s campaign website briefly crashed due to the influx of donations, with his aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raising $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups garnered $332.4 million, compared to pro-Trump groups, which raised $431.2 million. As of the end of June, Biden had $281 million available, while Trump had $336.2 million.