A day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million through its main fundraising platform, ActBlue. This amount was recorded over just two days, as tracked by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially confirmed, it reflects substantial fundraising activity before the mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to launch Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous record was during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump on September 30, 2020.
The influx of donations also brought ActBlue’s total raised since its inception to $14 billion. In contrast, WinRed, which is aligned with Republican fundraising, has collected approximately $4.3 billion since its launch in late 2019.
ActBlue reported on Monday that many first-time donors contributed in the last 24 hours, energizing their grassroots movement. Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments shortly after his announcement endorsing Harris. Swing Left, which aims to support the eventual Democratic nominee, raised over $160,000 in the same period.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence in Harris’s campaign being “very well financed,” stating his support. High-profile Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also endorsed her.
Historically, Biden had strong fundraising days following significant events, such as raising approximately $28 million after a June debate with Trump and $19.2 million after Trump was convicted on felony charges. In the same timeframe, Trump and his affiliates raised $69 million, leading to technical issues on his campaign website due to high traffic. From April to June, pro-Biden groups collected $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups raised $431.2 million, leaving Biden with $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million by the end of June.