Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, Democrats managed to secure $100 million from contributors via their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic entities, recorded this significant amount over a two-day span, according to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not official and is drawn from ActBlue’s own tracker of total donations since 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of any formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, supporters rallied to donate $66.9 million towards Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly launched presidential campaign, marking the most successful fundraising day for the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous high point in recent memory was on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This surge in donations propelled ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total fundraising since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, that they had seen numerous individuals making their inaugural donations in the last 24 hours, expressing enthusiasm over the new small-dollar contributors joining the grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Biden, gained $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in just 24 hours.
Evercore founder Roger Altman expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and pledged his support. Major Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, have also expressed their backing for Harris.
In terms of past fundraising milestones, Biden saw significant contributions immediately following a tense debate loss to Donald Trump on June 27, which brought in about $28 million from his campaigns and affiliated committees over two days. Additionally, Biden raised $19.2 million after Trump was charged with 34 felony counts. Conversely, Trump and his allies garnered $69 million within 24 hours of his conviction, leading to a temporary crash of his campaign website. In the same period, the super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million.
Between April and June, groups supporting Biden raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the conclusion of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.