Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, reported this total over the last two days, as noted by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not official and is based on ActBlue’s tracking of total donations since 2004, it provides insight into the platform’s fundraising performance ahead of upcoming required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, marking the largest single-day fundraising total in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. This surpassed the previous record, which occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate, according to Murphy’s tracker.
As a result of the substantial donations on Sunday, ActBlue has raised a total of $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that started in late 2019, has raised about $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue remarked on X, formerly known as Twitter, Monday afternoon, expressing excitement about the influx of new donors saying many made their first-ever contribution in the last 24 hours. “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!” they said.
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly received $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which established a fund supporting the eventual Democratic nominee, stated it raised over $160,000 within a day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence on Monday regarding Harris’s campaign, stating it would be “very well financed” and pledged his support. Democratic mega-donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden’s best fundraising days followed his defeat by former President Donald Trump during a televised debate on June 27, which brought in approximately $28 million from his committees by the next day, according to a New York Times analysis.
Biden collected an additional $19.2 million in the days following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts. In contrast, Trump and his affiliated groups secured $69 million between May 30 and May 31, leading to a brief crash of Trump’s campaign website. An associated 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 secured $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.