Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, Democrats successfully raised $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy of The Marshall Project, ActBlue, which is a political action committee and fundraising tool for Democratic initiatives, reported this fundraising achievement over the past two days. While this figure is not an official total, it provides insight into the organization’s fundraising performance ahead of forthcoming disclosure requirements.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million with the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most significant fundraising day in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The second-highest day for donations recently was on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
Following this surge in donations, ActBlue has now raised a total of $14 billion since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform that started in late 2019, has accumulated about $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue shared an encouraging message on X, formerly Twitter, stating, “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 from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Furthermore, Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 within the same timeframe, according to Agence France-Presse.
On Monday, Evercore founder Roger Altman expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and affirmed his support. Democratic heavyweights George and Alex Soros have also publicly backed Harris.
Previously, Biden’s most lucrative fundraising moments occurred immediately after he faced off against Trump during a debate on June 27, resulting in approximately $28 million raised within a day. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million in the ensuing days, while Trump and his associated groups brought in $69 million from his conviction on May 30 to May 31, causing a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC aligned with him, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that same month.
From April through June, groups supporting Biden raised $332.4 million, while those backing Trump collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the close of June, Biden had $281 million on hand, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.