Just a day after President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee focused on Democratic fundraising, reported this amount over the last two days, according to a live tracker developed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially verified and is based on ActBlue’s own comprehensive donation tracker since 2004, it highlights the group’s fundraising achievements just weeks before official disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the biggest fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous high for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With the surge in donations on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date.
ActBlue reported a significant 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!”
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, garnered $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours following Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement. Additionally, Swing Left, which has launched a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and declared his support for her. Democratic mega-donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their support to Harris.
Previously, Biden’s highest fundraising days were immediately following his defeat by then-President Trump in a televised debate on June 27. Biden and his committees raised around $28 million between that day and June 28. After Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliated groups amassed $69 million during the two days following his conviction, causing a brief crash of Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC “Make America Great Again Inc.” also raised $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups raised a total of $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups received $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.