Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
According to Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, recorded this significant amount over the past two days. While this figure is not officially confirmed, it reflects the total donations processed by ActBlue since its inception in 2004 and offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday, donations surged to $66.9 million in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the largest fundraising day in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for the most substantial donation day occurred on September 30, 2020, following the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s data.
With the generous contributions received on Sunday, ActBlue reached a milestone of $14 billion in total funds raised over the past twenty years. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion since its launch, based on figures from OpenSecrets.
ActBlue noted the influx of first-time donors, stating, “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!”
The Biden-aligned super PAC, Future Forward, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced it raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign, promising it would be “very well financed.” Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their support for Harris.
Biden’s previous most successful fundraising events followed his defeats in debates against former president Donald Trump. After a debate on June 27, 2020, Biden and his affiliated committees raised around $28 million in just over a day. Furthermore, following Trump’s indictment on 34 felony charges, Biden generated $19.2 million, while Trump and his supporters secured $69 million from May 30 to May 31, causing a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. raised $70 million in the same month.
Between April and June of this year, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups, according to reports from The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds, while Trump had $336.2 million.