Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised a staggering $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, recorded this impressive amount over a two-day period according to a tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. Though this figure is not official and relies on ActBlue’s own tracking of donations since 2004, it highlights the group’s fundraising prowess just weeks before official disclosures are due.
On a single day, Sunday, contributors provided $66.9 million to kickstart Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking it the most successful fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous high for recent donations occurred on September 30, 2020, right before the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
Following the surge of contributions on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has accrued around $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm about the influx of donations, noting an increase in first-time donors: “We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first ever donation in the last 24 hours! It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join 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 his endorsement of Harris. Another organization, Swing Left, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, declared on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also expressed their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced his most successful fundraising days right after being beaten by Trump during a televised debate on June 27. He raised approximately $28 million from that date through June 28, as per a New York Times analysis.
In the days following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million. In contrast, Trump and his associated groups garnered $69 million from May 30 to May 31. During this period, the influx of donations caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website, while aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations collected $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump entities raised $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available, while Trump had $336.2 million.