Just one day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek re-election, Democrats secured $100 million in donations through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform. This figure comes from a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project, which, while unofficial, offers insights into fundraising figures ahead of formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most significant fundraising day in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. This surpassed the previous noteworthy day for donations, which occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
As a result of the weekend’s fundraising surge, ActBlue reported its overall cash raised since its inception two decades ago has hit $14 billion. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has garnered approximately $4.3 billion to date, according to data from OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement over the influx of new donors, 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 aligned with Biden, reported receiving $150 million in new commitments from significant donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Furthermore, Swing Left, an organization created to support the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 within the same time frame.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and pledged his support. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
In Biden’s past fundraising efforts, significant boosts have often occurred following high-profile events, such as after his losses to Trump in a June debate, which led to approximately $28 million raised over two days. Following Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million. Trump also experienced a major influx of donations around the same event, raising $69 million in just one day, which temporarily crashed his campaign website.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden reported having $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.