Just a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million from donors through its primary fundraising platform. ActBlue, a political action committee that supports various Democratic organizations, recorded this impressive total over the past two days, as indicated by a live tracker maintained by developer Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project. While this figure is not officially verified and is based on ActBlue’s comprehensive tracker of donations since 2004, it offers insight into the organization’s fundraising performance ahead of the official disclosure deadlines.
On Sunday, alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to kick off Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the most significant single day of fundraising in the 2024 cycle for ActBlue. The previous record for daily donations occurred on September 30, 2020, during the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump, according to Murphy’s tracker.
This surge in donations pushed ActBlue’s lifetime total to $14 billion since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, the Republican fundraising counterpart that started in late 2019, has brought in about $4.3 billion to date, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue noted on social media that many contributors mentioned making their first donation ever in the last 24 hours, expressing excitement about the influx of new small-dollar donors joining the grassroots movement.
In addition, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris, according to Politico. Swing Left, which has initiated a fund to support the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within a 24-hour period.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed on Monday that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and pledged his support. High-profile Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also endorsed Harris’s campaign.
Historically, Biden’s most successful fundraising days were immediately following significant events, such as his notable fundraising of approximately $28 million after being defeated by Trump in a debate on June 27. Additionally, Biden raised $19.2 million in the days following Trump’s conviction on multiple felony counts, while Trump and associated groups gathered $69 million shortly after his conviction, leading to a temporary crash of his campaign website. An affiliated super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., amassed $70 million that month.
From April to June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million collected by pro-Trump factions, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million in his campaign coffers, while Trump held $336.2 million.