Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through ActBlue, its primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project, this significant fundraising effort took place over just two days. While the total is not official and is based on ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker initiated in 2004, it indicates a notable increase in contributions ahead of any formal reporting deadlines.
On Sunday alone, contributions for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign amounted to $66.9 million, making it the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle on ActBlue. This figure surpasses the previous record set on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
As a result of the donations over the weekend, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date.
ActBlue reported a surge in new supporters, stating that many individuals made their first contributions within the last 24 hours. The platform expressed enthusiasm over the influx of small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which was established to support the eventual Democratic nominee, indicated it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated on Monday that he believes Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and declared his support for her. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros are also backing her candidacy.
Historically, Biden’s most successful fundraising days occurred following his loss to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he and his committees raised approximately $28 million. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden pulled in $19.2 million, while Trump and his allied groups raised $69 million in the immediate aftermath of his conviction on May 30, leading to a brief crash of Trump’s campaign website. An associated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised an additional $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups collected $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups received $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.