A day after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, Democrats raised an impressive $100 million through their primary fundraising platform. ActBlue, the political action committee that supports Democratic initiatives, reported this sum over a two-day period, as tracked by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. While the totals are unofficial and drawn from ActBlue’s tracking of donations since 2004, they shed light on fundraising activities ahead of mandatory disclosures.
On Sunday, contributions reached $66.9 million to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle for ActBlue. The previous notable day was September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The recent donation surge helped ActBlue surpass $14 billion in total funds raised since its establishment two decades ago. In comparison, WinRed, the Republican donation platform launched in late 2019, has collected around $4.3 billion so far.
ActBlue mentioned on X, formerly Twitter, that many individuals expressed they made their first donation in the past 24 hours, highlighting a wave of new small-scale contributors joining the grassroots movement.
Additionally, 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. Another group, Swing Left, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Support for Harris’s campaign appears strong, with Evercore founder Roger Altman stating on Monday that her campaign will be “very well financed.” Prominent Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also pledged their support.
Previously, Biden’s most successful fundraising days occurred right after his defeats in debates against Donald Trump, with his campaign raising around $28 million shortly after a debate on June 27. Recent fundraising figures indicate that in the months leading up to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million. By the end of June, Biden reported having $281 million in hand, compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.