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 and fundraising tool for Democratic organizations, recorded this impressive total over a two-day period, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer with The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially verified, it reflects the organization’s fundraising performance ahead of required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the highest single-day fundraising for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous high occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This surge in giving allowed ActBlue to surpass a total of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has gathered approximately $4.3 billion to date, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue stated on X, formerly Twitter, that they have received numerous messages from individuals making their first contributions in the last 24 hours, highlighting the excitement surrounding new small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Swing Left, which started a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and has offered his support, along with backing from Democratic mega-donors George and Alex Soros.
Previously, Biden’s most successful fundraising days followed his significant loss to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when his campaign raised about $28 million in just two days. Biden also garnered $19.2 million in the days after Trump’s indictment on 34 felony counts. During this period, Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million, prompting a temporary crash of his campaign website due to the surge of donations. An aligned 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 groups collected $431.2 million, resulting in Biden having $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million by the end of June.