Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from their main fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic groups, reported this significant amount over the past two days, according to a live tracker by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. This figure, while not official, is derived from ActBlue’s ongoing tally of total donations since its establishment in 2004, providing insight into the fundraising efforts ahead of required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributors donated $66.9 million in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most successful fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The second highest donation day in recent history occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
With the recent surge in donations, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform launched in late 2019, has gathered about $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue announced on social media, “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, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which supports the eventual Democratic nominee, stated it raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, remarked on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Notable Democratic donors such as George and Alex Soros have also backed her campaign.
Previously, Biden’s most successful fundraising days occurred shortly after he faced defeat against Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he raised approximately $28 million. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million within days, while Trump and his affiliated groups collected $69 million from his conviction date onward. This influx temporarily crashed Trump’s campaign website, and his aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised an additional $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump entities brought in $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden reported having $281 million, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million on hand.