Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform, ActBlue.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, the impressive fundraising amount was noted over the preceding two days. Although this total is not official and is based on ActBlue’s extensive record of donations since 2004, it offers insight into the organization’s performance ahead of formal disclosure periods.
On Sunday, donors contributed $66.9 million in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single day of fundraising for the 2024 election cycle on ActBlue. The previous record was set on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With the substantial donations received on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, which serves as the Republican equivalent and launched in late 2019, has amassed approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue remarked on X, previously known as Twitter, that many first-time donors have stepped forward in the last 24 hours, indicating significant grassroots engagement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new pledges from major donors within 24 hours following Biden’s announcement and support for Harris. The group Swing Left also reported raising more than $160,000 in the same time frame for the eventual Democratic nominee.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign’s financial backing, highlighting support from prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros.
Previously, Biden experienced significant fundraising immediately following his defeat by Trump during a televised debate on June 27, which brought in about $28 million from Biden and his committees in the following day. He raised an additional $19.2 million after Trump was convicted on multiple felony counts, while Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million in the days following his conviction, temporarily overwhelming his campaign website. Additionally, the super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. collected $70 million in that same month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised a total of $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups, as reported by The Financial Times. At the end of June, Biden’s campaign held $281 million, while Trump’s campaign had $336.2 million on hand.