Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised a remarkable $100 million from donors through their primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee dedicated to fundraising for Democratic initiatives, reported this amount over the past two days, based on a live tracker created by Ryan Murphy from The Marshall Project. While this tally is unofficial and relies on ActBlue’s own tracking of donations since 2004, it offers a glimpse into the organization’s fundraising performance prior to the submission of any mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed an impressive $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest fundraising day yet for the 2024 cycle on ActBlue. The second-highest fundraising day in recent memory occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate, according to Murphy’s tracker.
The influx of donations on Sunday allowed ActBlue to surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican counterpart launched in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion to date, as reported by OpenSecrets.
ActBlue shared an enthusiastic statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, highlighting the numerous new donors who made their first contributions in the past 24 hours. “It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!” the organization stated.
Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, received $150 million in new commitments from prominent donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Additionally, Swing Left, which initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, disclosed it raised over $160,000 within a day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that he believes Harris’s campaign will be “very well financed” and reaffirmed his support for her candidacy. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also thrown their support behind Harris.
Biden’s previous notable fundraising sprees occurred immediately after he faced a significant defeat by Trump during a televised debate on June 27. Following that debate, Biden and his committees raised about $28 million within a day. He also raised $19.2 million in the days following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, while Trump and his associated groups garnered $69 million from May 30 to May 31, which temporarily crashed Trump’s campaign website. The aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million that month.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups collected $332.4 million, whereas pro-Trump groups amassed $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in hand compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.