Harris kicks off campaign with historic fundraising windfall

Sunday's political drama paid off for Vice President Kamala Harris in the form of one of the biggest fundraising windfalls in history.

Harris' presidential campaign, which she took over Sunday as President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, announced that it brought in $81 million in the first 24 hours — an eye-popping sum that easily dwarfed anything the Biden-Harris campaign had raised in a single day this election cycle.

Much of the giving was driven by online donors contributing via ActBlue, the digital fundraising platform favored by the Democratic Party. The service announced that by 9 p.m. ET Sunday, donors had already given $46.7 million to campaigns and groups that day, making it ActBlue's biggest fundraising day of the election to date.

ActBlue's federal campaign finance filings highlight the big moments Democratic campaigns have enjoyed so far this election cycle. (Those filings don’t include money donated to nonfederal groups via ActBlue.)

Led by Biden's campaign, daily totals given through ActBlue have trended up over time, spiking at the end of months and quarters around fundraising deadlines. Biden's campaign launch in late April 2023 generated a spike. And so did the fateful general election debate on June 27, when more than $19 million flowed through ActBlue.

Sunday's events completely overshadowed anything that came before. Look at the same data — but with the scale adjusted so the $46.7 million-plus haul Sunday would fit:

Sunday's fundraising spike was more than twice as big as anything ActBlue has experienced this election cycle and bigger than any moment of collective action by Democratic donors since 2020, when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death generated a surge of contributions to Biden and Democratic congressional candidates.

ActBlue said then that donors gave more than $70.6 million using the service the day after Ginsburg died.

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The latest fundraising bonanza on behalf of Harris also outstripped former President Donald Trump's biggest daily online donation totals from this election.

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Those came after Trump was convicted in his New York hush money trial, with his political operation bringing in a combined $63.6 million on May 30 and May 31 via WinRed, the widely used Republican online donation platform. The twin $30 million-plus hauls were responsible for the bulk of WinRed's activity on those days, dwarfing its previous daily totals this cycle.

The windfall for Trump helped his campaign and the Republican National Committee take the lead over Biden and the Democratic National Committee in terms of cash in the bank by the end of June, according to recent campaign finance filings.

But the surge of activity for Harris may swing the financial lead back in the other direction. And while money doesn't win elections on its own, campaigns certainly don't mind having more.