Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party collected $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee and fundraising platform for Democratic organizations, reported the amount raised over the past two days via a live tracker managed by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. Although this figure is unofficial and based on ActBlue’s cumulative donation tracker since 2004, it gives a snapshot of the group’s fundraising performance ahead of mandatory disclosure filings.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed nearly $66.9 million to launch Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising total for ActBlue in the 2024 election cycle. The previous highest day for donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
Due to the influx of donations on Sunday, ActBlue has now raised a total of $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican equivalent that began collecting donations in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, ActBlue noted an influx of first-time donors, emphasizing the grassroots support for the movement. Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, reportedly received $150 million in new commitments from major donors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Swing Left, which has started a fund for the eventual Democratic nominee, indicated it raised over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed that Harris’s campaign will have substantial financial backing and has pledged his support. Democratic mega-donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their support for Harris.
Biden’s most successful fundraising efforts previously followed a severe debate loss to Trump on June 27, when he raised about $28 million within 24 hours. He also raised $19.2 million after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts. Trump and associated groups managed to collect $69 million between May 30 and May 31, leading to a brief crash of his campaign website due to the sudden influx of donors. An affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million the same month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups gathered $332.4 million, while those supporting Trump raised $431.2 million, according to The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in campaign funds compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.