Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking re-election, Democrats raised an impressive $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform.
This amount was reported over the last two days, based on a real-time tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially confirmed, it offers insight into the fundraising activities ahead of upcoming disclosures.
On Sunday alone, contributors donated $66.9 million to launch Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising total of the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. This surpassed the previous high, which occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate.
The influx of contributions allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total cash raised since its inception two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican equivalent established in late 2019, has amassed around $4.3 billion.
ActBlue celebrated the surge, stating on X, formerly known as Twitter, that many donors reported making their first contributions in the last 24 hours, highlighting the engagement of new small-dollar donors in the grassroots effort.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which has initiated a fund to support the forthcoming Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in just a day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed,” indicating his support for her candidacy, while prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros also backed Harris.
Previously, Biden’s significant fundraising moments occurred following a decisive televised debate defeat to Trump on June 27, resulting in roughly $28 million raised in just two days afterward. Biden additionally garnered $19.2 million in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, during which Trump and affiliated groups raised $69 million from May 30 to May 31, momentarily crashing Trump’s campaign website. The aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that same month.
Between April and June, groups supporting Biden gathered $332.4 million, while those backing Trump raised $431.2 million. By the close of June, Biden had $281 million available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.