Just one 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 dedicated to Democratic fundraising, reported this impressive total over a two-day period, based on a real-time tracker developed by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project. While this figure isn’t official, as it stems from ActBlue’s cumulative data since its inception in 2004, it offers a glimpse into the group’s fundraising activity ahead of any forthcoming official reports.
On Sunday alone, $66.9 million was raised for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for ActBlue in the current election cycle. The previous record was set on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This surge in donations brought ActBlue’s total fundraising to $14 billion since its launch twenty years ago. In contrast, WinRed, its counterpart for Republicans, has amassed approximately $4.3 billion since its debut in late 2019.
“We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first ever donation in the last 24 hours!” ActBlue shared in a statement on social media, highlighting the arrival of numerous new small-dollar donors to the grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, remarked on Monday that Harris’s campaign will have ample financial backing and expressed his support for her candidacy. Notable Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also thrown their weight behind Harris.
In past comparison, Biden’s most lucrative fundraising periods followed significant moments such as a televised debate on June 27, when he raised about $28 million in just over 24 hours. Moreover, after Trump was convicted of numerous felony charges, Biden raised $19.2 million shortly thereafter, while Trump and his affiliated groups collected $69 million in the days surrounding his conviction, even causing a temporary crash of his campaign website due to the surge in donors. Meanwhile, an aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that same month.
During the period from April to June, pro-Biden groups raised a total of $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million by pro-Trump groups. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds, while Trump had $336.2 million.