Just a day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their principal fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by developer Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project, ActBlue reported this fundraising milestone over the last two days. Although the figure is unofficial and based on ActBlue’s internal tracking of donations since 2004, it offers an early glimpse into the fundraising effectiveness ahead of formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign received $66.9 million, marking the most successful fundraising day for ActBlue in the upcoming 2024 election cycle. The previous high was recorded on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first debate between Biden and Trump.
This spike in donations pushed ActBlue’s total fundraising since its inception two decades ago to $14 billion. In contrast, WinRed, the fundraising platform for Republicans which began in late 2019, has raised around $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
“We’ve had a surge of first-time donors in the last 24 hours!” ActBlue stated on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday. “It’s inspiring to see new small-dollar contributors join the grassroots movement!”
Following Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day. Additionally, Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Evercore founder Roger Altman expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign is expected to be “very well financed” and has pledged his support. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also thrown their backing behind Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most lucrative fundraising days have come immediately after significant events, such as a televised debate defeat against Trump on June 27, where he and his committees raised approximately $28 million within 24 hours. Furthermore, after Trump faced convictions on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the subsequent days, while Trump and his supporting groups accumulated $69 million in that same period. This wave of donations briefly crashed Trump’s campaign website. In May, the aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. secured $70 million.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups collectively raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups gathered $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.