Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, the significant fundraising took place over the previous two days. Although these figures are not official, as they are derived from ActBlue’s own mega-tracker since its inception in 2004, they offer insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday, donors contributed $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising total for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The second-highest day for donations was noted on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate, as per Murphy’s tracker.
As a result of the donation surge on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion raised since its launch two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that started in late 2019, has gathered approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
“We’ve seen many people saying they made their first-ever donation in the last 24 hours!” an ActBlue statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, highlighted. “It’s incredibly motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Additionally, Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Evercore founder Roger Altman stated on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, have also expressed their backing for Harris.
Biden’s earlier fundraising highs often followed significant political events, such as his defeat by rival Trump during a televised debate on June 27, which resulted in about $28 million raised within that period, according to a New York Times analysis. After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his associated groups amassed $69 million in the day following his conviction, briefly crashing Trump’s campaign website. An aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised an additional $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups. By the end of June, Biden reported having $281 million in hand, while Trump held $336.2 million.