Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic causes, reported this amount as part of a live tracking system managed by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. Although the figures are unofficial, they offer insight into the group’s fundraising performance ahead of required disclosure filings.
On Sunday alone, donations reached $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, making it the largest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous record for one-day donations was set on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate.
This significant influx on Sunday helped ActBlue surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception 20 years ago. In contrast, WinRed, its Republican counterpart launched in late 2019, has gathered approximately $4.3 billion to date.
ActBlue noted a surge in new donors, 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, reportedly secured $150 million in fresh commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Another group, Swing Left, which was established to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, the founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign, assuring that it would be “very well financed” and indicated his support. Prominent Democratic donors, George and Alex Soros, have also shown their backing for Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced significant fundraising boosts after losing a televised debate to Trump on June 27, raising around $28 million in the immediate aftermath. He also collected $19.2 million following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, during which Trump and his affiliated groups raised $69 million from May 30 to May 31, causing a temporary crash of Trump’s campaign website. The super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations raised $332.4 million while pro-Trump entities garnered $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in available funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.