Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised an impressive $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project, ActBlue, the political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, recorded this amount over the past two days. Although this figure is unofficial—derived from ActBlue’s own comprehensive donation tracker—it provides an insight into the group’s fundraising success well in advance of the required disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donations totaled $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single fundraising day in the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous peak occurred on September 30, 2020, following the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
Thanks to this surge in donations, ActBlue reached a significant milestone of $14 billion raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which launched in late 2019, has amassed approximately $4.3 billion in donations, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm on social media, reporting a wave of first-time donors in the last 24 hours, stating, “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
In addition to ActBlue’s success, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, as reported by Politico. Swing Left, which has initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, stated it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, indicated on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and declared his support for her. Notable Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also backed Harris.
In past fundraising efforts, Biden saw significant contributions following high-profile events, such as after his debates with Donald Trump. For instance, after being outperformed in a televised debate on June 27, Biden and his teams raised around $28 million within a day. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliates collected $69 million during the same timeframe, briefly crashing Trump’s campaign website. Furthermore, Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. raised $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups gathered $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups received $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.