Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform, ActBlue. This total was recorded over the past two days, according to data from Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially verified as it relies on ActBlue’s internal tracking that dates back to 2004, it offers insight into the fundraising momentum just weeks before mandatory disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record for daily donations occurred on September 30, 2020, the day of the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
This surge in donations also helped ActBlue reach a significant milestone, having raised $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that began in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion, according to data from OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported a surge of new donors over the weekend, stating that many individuals made their first donations within a 24-hour period following Biden’s announcement. Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after his announcement and endorsement of Harris. Additionally, Swing Left, which established a fund supporting the Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed his belief that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” following her launch and affirmed his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also shown their support for Harris.
Biden’s most successful fundraising efforts in the past occurred after being defeated by Trump during a televised debate on June 27, 2020, when he raised about $28 million in the following days. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million shortly thereafter, while Trump and his affiliated groups collected $69 million in the same timeframe, briefly crashing his campaign website. In May, the aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. garnered $70 million.
Between April and June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups accumulated $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.