Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, which serves as a political action committee and fundraising resource for Democratic organizations, reported this impressive total over the previous two days via a live tracker created by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While the reported amount is unofficial—derived from ActBlue’s extensive donation compilation since 2004—it provides insight into the group’s fundraising achievements ahead of any mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donations amounted to $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous top day for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The substantial contributions on Sunday allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform that began in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue celebrated this surge in donations on social media, noting that many individuals were contributing for the first time and expressing enthusiasm for the emergence of new small-dollar donors within 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 Harris’s endorsement, according to Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund in support of the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same 24-hour timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign being “very well financed” and announced his backing. Notable Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, also pledged their support for Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most successful fundraising days followed his losses to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he and his committees raised around $28 million from that day until June 28, as found by a New York Times analysis.
Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates amassed $69 million between May 30 and May 31, causing a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. An associated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups accumulated $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump organizations gathered $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in cash reserves compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.