Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic causes, reported this impressive sum over the last two days, based on a live tracker developed by Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. Though the total is not officially verified, as it relies on ActBlue’s own data collected since 2004, it offers insights into fundraising ahead of formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, the initiative saw contributions of $66.9 million made towards Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising total in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The second-highest donation day in recent times was on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s data.
The significant boost in donations this past Sunday helped ActBlue surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican equivalent launched in late 2019, has gathered approximately $4.3 billion up to this point as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue noted, “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!” in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Future Forward, a super PAC linked to Biden, also reported receiving $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Additionally, Swing Left stated it raised over $160,000 in 24 hours to support the eventual Democratic nominee.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, noted on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Major Democratic donors such as George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced a surge in fundraising right after he faced off against then-President Trump in a televised debate on June 27, raising around $28 million in the following 24 hours. Post-Trump’s indictment on 34 felony counts, Biden garnered $19.2 million in donations, while Trump and his associates raised $69 million from May 30 to May 31, temporarily causing his campaign website to crash. A super PAC supporting Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., also collected $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups amassed $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups raised $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.