Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, Democrats managed to raise $100 million from donors via their primary fundraising platform.
According to a live tracker maintained by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, ActBlue, a political action committee focused on Democratic fundraising, recorded this significant amount over the past two days. While this figure is not official, as it is based on ActBlue’s own data since its inception in 2004, it offers insight into the group’s fundraising success ahead of upcoming disclosures.
On Sunday alone, supporters contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the biggest fundraising day for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. This surpassed the previous high of September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate.
Due to this surge in contributions, ActBlue has now raised a total of $14 billion since its establishment two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican counterpart launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue reported a surge of first-time donors in the last 24 hours. “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!” the organization stated on X, previously known as Twitter.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, garnered $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, announced it raised more than $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, confirmed on Monday that Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and expressed his support. Major Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, are also backing Harris.
Previously, Biden experienced substantial fundraising days immediately following a debate loss to former president Donald Trump on June 27, when he and his committees raised about $28 million. Following Trump’s recent conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his associated groups brought in $69 million from the day of his conviction to the following day.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups secured $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups raised $431.2 million as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million on hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.