Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from contributors via their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that aids Democratic fundraising efforts, reported this amount over a two-day period, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer associated with The Marshall Project. While this figure isn’t officially confirmed as it derives from ActBlue’s internal tracker since 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance prior to any formal disclosures.
On the previous Sunday alone, the platform received $66.9 million in donations to kick-start Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the most successful fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The second-highest day for contributions was recorded on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate.
This surge of donations allowed ActBlue to reach a milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception 20 years ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date.
ActBlue issued a statement on X, formerly Twitter, celebrating the influx of first-time donors. “It’s incredibly inspiring to witness a wave of new small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement!”
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC allied with Biden, garnered $150 million in new commitments from key donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Swing Left, which established a fund in support of the forthcoming Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in just one day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, affirmed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his backing for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their support for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced significant fundraising spikes directly following his loss to Trump during a debate on June 27, which brought in around $28 million in total over the subsequent days. After Trump faced 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million while Trump’s campaign and affiliates amassed $69 million shortly after the conviction, which briefly caused a crash of Trump’s campaign website. An associated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that same month.
From April to June, pro-Biden entities raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.