Yesterday, after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House, the nonprofit Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue received its most single-day donations of the entire year—and, possibly, in its entire two-decade history.
The influx of support began flooding in after Biden’s initial announcement, which came via a letter posted to X (formerly Twitter) around 2 p.m. ET. Shortly thereafter, Biden gave his official support to Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic nominee.
“NEW: Small-dollar donors raise over $27.5 million on ActBlue in the first 5 hours of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign,” the nonprofit wrote on X yesterday around 7 p.m. “Grassroots supporters are energized and excited to support her as the Democratic nominee.”
By 9 p.m., that figure had nearly doubled: ActBlue reported that grassroots supporters had raised a total of $46.7 million, “the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle.”
According to data collected on the site Observable HQ by journalist Ryan Murphy, yesterday may also have been ActBlue’s most successful day of fundraising ever. The site updates automatically every 15 minutes based on ActBlue’s ticker tracker—which, Murphy clarifies, is not an official count and may not be as accurate as ActBlue’s required filings with the Federal Election Commission.
That being said, the site recorded nearly $67 million in total donations by the end of the day. According to Murphy’s data, that’s the highest observed day of contribution on the site, followed only by September 19, 2020—the day of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.
Fast Company reached out to ActBlue to confirm the fundraising figure and ask if it was an all-time record. We will update this post if we hear back.
Today, ActBlue took to X again to encourage followers to keep it up: “Good morning. Same energy as yesterday?”