Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors via its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project, ActBlue reported this fundraising achievement over the past two days. While the figure is not official, as it relies on ActBlue’s own tracking of donations since 2004, it gives insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of the required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, $66.9 million was contributed to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking this as the most significant fundraising day for the 2024 election cycle on ActBlue. The previous notable fundraising day occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in donations led ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which began operating in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue shared on X, formerly Twitter, that many of the new donations came from first-time contributors, indicating a growing grassroots movement. Following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, the super PAC Future Forward reportedly received $150 million in commitments from major donors within 24 hours. Meanwhile, Swing Left announced it raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and pledged his support. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also shown their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced significant fundraising shortly after being outperformed by Trump in a televised debate on June 27, 2020, raising around $28 million in just over 24 hours. In the aftermath of Trump’s convictions on felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates collected $69 million in the day following his conviction. The influx of donations even caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. The aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups amassed $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups secured $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.