Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from donors via its primary fundraising platform.
The fundraising platform ActBlue, which works with Democratic organizations, reported this amount over a two-day period, based on a real-time tracker managed by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure isn’t official as it relies on ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker established in 2004, it highlights the organization’s fundraising activity ahead of any formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donations totaled $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launch, making it the most significant single day of fundraising for the 2024 election cycle through ActBlue. The previous high occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in contributions enabled ActBlue to reach a milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has amassed approximately $4.3 billion to date, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue commented on the situation via a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “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, reportedly secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors just within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and backing of Harris. Swing Left, which initiated a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, also reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and announced his support. Major Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged their backing to Harris.
In previous fundraising peaks for Biden, significant donations followed a televised debate defeat against Trump on June 27, where Biden and his committees raised approximately $28 million in just two days. After Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his aligned groups accumulated $69 million from May 30 to May 31, briefly overwhelming Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. also raised $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in funds available, whereas Trump had $336.2 million.