Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats have successfully raised $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, this amount was amassed over the past two days. While the tally is based on ActBlue’s mega-tracker, which has been monitoring donations since 2004, it offers insight into the fundraising efforts ahead of the official disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday alone, contributions totaled $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the most successful fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The second-highest day for donations was on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With this surge in donations, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total money raised since its inception. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, has raised around $4.3 billion since its launch in late 2019.
ActBlue highlighted the involvement of many newcomers, stating, “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!”
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of his announcement and Harris’s endorsement, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, which established a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, indicated on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be well-funded, expressing his support for her candidacy. Notable Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing to Harris.
Biden previously had significant fundraising spikes following high-profile debates, including a notable $28 million after being outmatched by Trump during a televised debate on June 27. In the period following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates amassed $69 million from May 30 to May 31. This influx of donations temporarily crashed Trump’s campaign website, and his aligned super PAC raised an additional $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations accumulated $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups garnered $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.