Just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not pursue re-election, the Democratic Party raised $100 million through its primary fundraising platform.
ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic efforts, reported this figure over the previous two days via a live tracker created by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project. Though this total is unofficial and based on ActBlue’s extensive donation tracker since 2004, it offers an insight into the group’s fundraising success ahead of formal disclosures.
On Sunday alone, donors contributed $66.9 million for the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the largest fundraising day for ActBlue during the 2024 election cycle. The previous significant fundraising day occurred on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump participated in their first presidential debate, as indicated by Murphy’s data.
As a result of the donations received on Sunday, ActBlue surpassed $14 billion in total funds raised since its inception two decades ago. In contrast, WinRed, which was established for Republican fundraising in late 2019, has collected around $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue expressed excitement over the surge in donations, stating on X, formerly Twitter, that many first-time donors had joined the grassroots movement: “We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first ever donation in the last 24 hours!”
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors within a day of Biden’s announcement and Harris’s endorsement. Swing Left, which has initiated a fund backing the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in the same timeframe.
Evercore founder Roger Altman commented that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support for her. Notable Democratic benefactors, including George and Alex Soros, have also endorsed Harris.
Previously, Biden’s most profitable fundraising periods had followed a debate loss to former President Donald Trump on June 27, when he and his affiliates raised about $28 million in the following days. Biden also raised $19.2 million after Trump was indicted on 34 felony charges. In contrast, Trump and his affiliates gathered $69 million between May 30 and May 31, following his indictment, which briefly overwhelmed the Trump campaign website. The super PAC aligned with him, Make America Great Again Inc., raised $70 million in that month.
From April to June, groups supporting Biden collected $332.4 million while those backing Trump received $431.2 million, as reported by The Financial Times. By the end of June, Biden had $281 million available compared to Trump’s $336.2 million.