Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, ActBlue’s live tracker revealed this impressive amount raised over the previous two days. While the figure is not officially confirmed and relies on ActBlue’s comprehensive tracking of total donations since 2004, it offers insight into the organization’s fundraising performance just weeks prior to the required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, $66.9 million was contributed to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, setting a record for fundraising in the 2024 cycle on ActBlue. The previous highest single-day fundraising total occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump squared off in their first debate.
The influx of donations on Sunday enabled ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total cash raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican equivalent that began fundraising in late 2019, has collected around $4.3 billion to date.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, ActBlue noted the excitement surrounding new 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!”
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, revealed it raised more than $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and confirmed his support. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown support for Harris.
Previously, Biden’s major fundraising boosts occurred after a poor debate performance against Trump on June 27, where he and his committees raised approximately $28 million within 24 hours. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the subsequent days, while Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million overnight on May 30. The surge caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website, and his aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., collected $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations generated $332.4 million in funds, compared to pro-Trump groups, which brought in $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available against Trump’s $336.2 million.