A day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform. According to a live tracker by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, this amount was raised over the last two days. While the figure is not officially confirmed, it offers insight into the Democrats’ fundraising ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday, donations surged to $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 cycle on ActBlue. The second highest was on September 30, 2020, corresponding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This spike in contributions enabled ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart established in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue noted a significant number of first-time donors in recent days, expressing excitement over the influx of small-dollar contributions joining the grassroots movement. Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of his announcement and support for Harris. Additionally, Swing Left, which initiated a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, assured on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed,” citing his support alongside that of prominent Democratic donors like George and Alex Soros.
Historically, Biden’s fundraising peaks have followed significant events, such as after debates and Trump’s recent legal troubles. Following his loss to Trump in a debate on June 27, Biden and his committees raised about $28 million. He also garnered $19.2 million shortly after Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, while Trump and allied groups collected $69 million in the two days following his conviction.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups took in $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in his campaign treasury, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.