Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million from contributors through their principal fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic initiatives, recorded this impressive amount over the last two days, according to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While the figure is unofficial and stems from ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker established since 2004, it gives an early insight into their fundraising performance before any required disclosures are made.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for donations in recent history was set on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in the first presidential debate.
This influx of donations on Sunday enabled ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that began in late 2019, has collected around $4.3 billion, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue highlighted the enthusiasm of new contributors in a statement on X (formerly 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, secured $150 million in new commitments from key donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. The organization Swing Left reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe for a fund supporting the eventual Democratic nominee.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed support for Harris’s campaign, indicating it will be “very well financed.” Well-known Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also pledged support for her.
Historically, the best fundraising days for Biden occurred immediately after he faced a significant defeat against Donald Trump during a televised debate on June 27, when he and his committees raised approximately $28 million in just 24 hours. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the days after, whereas Trump and his associated groups brought in $69 million between May 30 and May 31, leading to a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. The aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups amassed $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden’s campaign had $281 million available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.