Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats generated $100 million from donors through ActBlue, their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, this significant amount was raised over just two days. While the reported figure is unofficial—drawing from ActBlue’s comprehensive donation tracker since 2004—it offers insight into the fundraising performance of the group just weeks before any official disclosures are needed.
On Sunday alone, donations surged to $66.9 million to kickstart Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most successful fundraising day in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous high for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, as noted by Murphy.
This fundraising surge allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago, while WinRed, its Republican counterpart established in late 2019, has collected approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement over the influx of donations on their social media platform, 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 in new commitments from significant donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Another group, Swing Left, which supports the eventual Democratic nominee, stated it raised over $160,000 within the same time frame.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, indicated on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed,” and prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also expressed their support for her candidacy.
Historically, Biden experienced his most successful fundraising days after a televised debate loss to Trump on June 27, when he and his committees raised around $28 million in the following 24 hours. Furthermore, Biden raised $19.2 million following Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts, while Trump and his affiliated groups garnered $69 million in the immediate aftermath of his conviction on May 30, which even caused a temporary crash of his campaign website. That month, the aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. raised $70 million.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups raised approximately $332.4 million, while pro-Trump organizations collected around $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. As of the end of June, Biden had $281 million in cash compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.