Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic causes, reported this impressive total over the last two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not official and is drawn from ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker since 2004, it reflects strong fundraising activity just weeks before official disclosures are due.
On Sunday alone, contributions surged to $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. This surpassed a previous high on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
With the increase in donations, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total contributions since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising counterpart that began operations in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue commented on social media, noting a significant number of first-time donors had contributed within the last 24 hours, which they described as incredibly motivating for the grassroots movement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors just within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Additionally, Swing Left reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, asserted on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support, alongside Democratic heavyweights George and Alex Soros.
Previously, Biden experienced notable fundraising boosts after critical televised debates, including raising about $28 million following a debate against Trump on June 27. Following Trump’s conviction on felony charges, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates raised $69 million during the same period, temporarily crashing his campaign website due to the influx of donors.
From April to June, pro-Biden organizations amassed $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups received $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden held $281 million in funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.