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, a political action committee that supports Democratic organizations, noted that this sum was collected over two days, according to a live tracker created by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. Although this tally is unofficial and is based on ActBlue’s own tracker since it began in 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising performance weeks before formal disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the most significant fundraising day in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous high for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, as reported by Murphy.
Due to the spike in donations on Sunday, ActBlue crossed the milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, which serves as the Republican equivalent and was established in late 2019, has accumulated around $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue shared in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many individuals reported making their first donation within the past 24 hours, expressing enthusiasm for the new wave of small-dollar contributors joining the grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, which has initiated a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, claimed to have raised over $160,000 within 24 hours.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and confirmed his support for her candidacy. Notable Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also expressed their backing for Harris.
Biden’s strongest fundraising days in the past were right after his defeat by Trump during a televised debate on June 27. Following that debate, Biden and his committees raised approximately $28 million between June 27 and June 28, according to a New York Times analysis.
In the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, whereas Trump and his affiliated groups reported raising $69 million from May 30 to May 31. This surge in donations caused a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website, while an affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups collected $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump organizations, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available, while Trump had $336.2 million.