Just one day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not pursue re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising hub for Democratic entities, reported this substantial amount collected over the past two days through a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is unofficial and sourced from ActBlue’s mega-tracker of total donations dating back to 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of mandatory filings.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking a record for the 2024 fundraising cycle on ActBlue. The previous highest day for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
As a result of the donation surge on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed a significant milestone by accumulating $14 billion in funds since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart WinRed, which began collecting donations in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, ActBlue expressed enthusiasm about the influx of new small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement, noting that many individuals reported making their first-ever donations in just the past 24 hours.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from major donors soon after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, an organization aimed at supporting the Democratic nominee, also stated that it raised over $160,000 within a day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed support for Harris’s campaign, predicting it would be “very well financed.” Major Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown backing for Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most successful fundraising moments occurred after significant events, including following a June debate in which he was outperformed by Trump, when he and his committees raised around $28 million within 24 hours. He also raised $19.2 million after Trump was convicted on multiple felony counts. In contrast, Trump and his supporting groups raised $69 million in the immediate aftermath of his conviction, which briefly caused a crash of Trump’s campaign website. The associated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million in that month.
From April to June, organizations supporting Biden collected $332.4 million, while those backing Trump accumulated $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden held $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.