Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million through their primary fundraising platform. ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic organizations, tracked this amount over the last two days, according to a live update from Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially verified—since it derives from ActBlue’s extensive donor records since 2004—it highlights significant fundraising activity ahead of formal disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday alone, contributions reached $66.9 million to support the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest fundraising day for ActBlue in the current 2024 election cycle. Historically, the second highest day for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, as noted by Murphy.
As a result of this fundraising surge, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that started in late 2019, has accumulated around $4.3 billion to date, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported on X, previously known as Twitter, that many individuals had made their first-ever contributions within the last 24 hours, showcasing the growing support from small-dollar donors. Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from significant donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which initiated a fund in support of the eventual Democratic nominee, revealed it raised over $160,000 within a similar timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and announced his personal backing. Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also lent their support to Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most successful fundraising efforts occurred immediately after being soundly criticized by Trump during a debate on June 27, which netted his campaign roughly $28 million over two days, based on a New York Times analysis. Biden also raised $19.2 million following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, while Trump’s campaign and associated groups gathered $69 million in the days following his conviction on May 30. This influx of contributions temporarily crashed Trump’s campaign website. A super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised a total of $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in his campaign coffers, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.