Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, reported this figure over the past two days through a live tracker operated by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this tally is unofficial and relies on ActBlue’s own mega-tracker of donations since 2004, it illustrates the group’s fundraising performance before official disclosures are required.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it ActBlue’s highest fundraising day for the 2024 cycle. The second-highest day for donations in recent history was September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
Due to the influx of donations on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. Its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which was established in late 2019, has collected around $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
“We’ve seen many individuals saying they made their first-ever donation in the last 24 hours!” ActBlue stated on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday afternoon. “It’s inspiring to witness new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours following Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, stated it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, mentioned on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed,” expressing his support for her. Democratic mega-donors George and Alex Soros have also shown backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden’s most lucrative days for fundraising occurred shortly after he faced a significant defeat by then-rival Donald Trump during a televised debate on June 27. Between that day and June 28, Biden and his committees raised approximately $28 million, according to a New York Times analysis.
Biden also garnered $19.2 million shortly after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts. From May 30 to May 31, Trump and his allied groups raised $69 million. This surge of donations briefly crashed Trump’s campaign website. An affiliated 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 brought in $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.