Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from contributors via its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic organizations, reported this amount collected over the previous two days, as noted by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. Although this figure is not officially verified and is based on ActBlue’s own extensive tracker of donations since 2004, it offers insight into the organization’s fundraising activity ahead of upcoming disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors provided $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the largest single-day fundraising total in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The second highest fundraising day in recent times was noted on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate.
Due to the spike in donations on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed the $14 billion mark in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which began operations in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, ActBlue noted, “We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first ever donation in the last 24 hours! It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
The super PAC Future Forward, which supports Biden, reported receiving $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement. Swing Left, which has launched a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced it raised over $160,000 within the same time frame.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, commented on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his backing for her candidacy. Notable Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their support for Harris.
Biden’s most significant fundraising days previously occurred following his defeat in a televised debate against Donald Trump on June 27, when Biden and his committees gathered approximately $28 million from that day until June 28, as reported by a New York Times analysis.
Additionally, he raised $19.2 million in the wake of Trump being convicted on 34 felony counts. Trump and his affiliated groups amassed $69 million between May 30 and May 31 after his conviction, causing a temporary crash of his campaign website. Aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups generated $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.