Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
According to recent data from ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising tool for Democratic organizations, this substantial amount was collected over two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this tally is unofficial and relies on ActBlue’s comprehensive donation insights since 2004, it offers a preliminary overview of the group’s fundraising achievements ahead of upcoming official disclosures.
On the previous Sunday alone, contributors donated $66.9 million to kickstart Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the largest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The second-highest triggering day for donations in the group’s recent history was on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in donations this past Sunday also enabled ActBlue to surpass a total of $14 billion raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which began in late 2019, has accumulated approximately $4.3 billion in donations, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement over the influx of first-time small-dollar donors, stating on social media, “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!”
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reported securing $150 million in new commitments from major donors within the same 24-hour period following Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Meanwhile, Swing Left announced over $160,000 raised to support the eventual Democratic nominee in just one day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, remarked on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his backing. Prominent Democratic benefactors, George and Alex Soros, have also pledged their support to Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most significant fundraising days occurred after his notable defeat to Trump during a televised debate on June 27. Biden, along with his committees, garnered approximately $28 million between that day and the following. He also raised $19.2 million in the wake of Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts. Trump’s campaign reported a fundraising rise of $69 million from the day of his conviction to the following day, which even led to a temporary crash of his campaign website. The Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC associated with Trump raised $70 million that same month.
In a broader analysis, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups received $431.2 million from April to June. By the close of June, Biden had $281 million available against Trump’s $336.2 million.