The New Daily
Jul 22, 2024,
US Vice President Kamala Harris is racing to lock down support after Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race – securing millions in donations and support from as far away as Beyonce’s mother.
Harris became the leading candidate to succeed Biden as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee – and her party’s main hope of defeating Republican Donald Trump – with Biden’s announcement late on Sunday (US time) that he was quitting.
She wasted no time in speaking to leading Democrats to secure their backing for the nomination.
“Her team is fully activated and phones are ringing, emails are blowing up. This thing is rolling,” supporter Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, said on Sunday.
“This has taken off like a rocket ship.”
The campaign dollars were already flooding in for Harris.
The Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue said Sunday night that small-dollar donors raised more than $US46.7 million ($69.8 million) in the first five hours of Harris’ candidacy.
“Grassroots supporters are energised and excited to support her as the Democratic nominee,” the group said on X.
UPDATE: As of 9pm ET, grassroots supporters have raised $46.7 million through ActBlue following Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launch. This has been the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle. Small-dollar donors are fired up and ready to take on this election 🔥
— ActBlue (@actblue) July 22, 2024
Harris spoke multiple times with Biden on Sunday, according to people familiar with the conversations – a day after Biden huddled with his closest aides in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, as he began to conclude that he would end his re-election bid.
About two hours after Biden’s surprise Sunday announcement, Harris released her own statement, making it clear she knew the nomination would not just be handed to her.
“I am honoured to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said.
“Over the past year, I have travelled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead.”
There are already signs that Harris may not be alone in the Democratic race.
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who left the party earlier this year to become an independent, is considering re-registering as a Democrat to vie for the nomination, according to Jonathan Kott, a long-time adviser to Manchin.
Harris has also yet to consolidate the party’s top heavyweights behind her.
Former president Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State (and one-time candidate) Hillary Clinton endorsed her even before she had commented on Biden’s decision, but former president Barack Obama held off, merely pledging support behind the eventual party nominee.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi – seen as key in Biden’s decision not to run – and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are also yet to issue public statements of support.
Meanwhile, Republican rival Trump was quick to issue a scathing assessment of Harris.
“Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” Trump told CNN.
He and his campaign later also attacked Biden and Harris on social media while saying Biden was unfit to continue serving as president.
On Sunday night, Harris issued her first fundraising email that declared: “I am running to be President of the United States.”
“It has been the honour of a lifetime to serve alongside our Commander in Chief, my friend, President Joe Biden – one of the finest public servants we will ever know,” she wrote.
“I am honoured to have his support and endorsement. And I am eager to run on the record of what Joe and I have accomplished together.”
But as she works to consolidate the party behind her, Harris still has her day job – while Biden remains sidelined due to Covid-19.
She is slated to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington later this week.
Harris also has a previously scheduled campaign swing to Milwaukee on Tuesday.
Biden’s decision comes less than a month before the Democratic National Convention, where the presidential candidate will be officially nominated.
-with AAP
Lloyd Lee Jul 21, 2024,
After Donald Trump's conviction, the former president's campaign said it raised $52.8M in 24 hours.
Democrats zoomed past those numbers in about half a day after Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
ActBlue, the Democrat's fundraising platform, raised well over $53 million since the announcement.
Democrats just blew past one of Donald Trump's largest single-day fundraising numbers on Sunday after President Joe Biden's surprising withdrawal from the 2024 race.
By 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, ActBlue, a online donation platform for the Democratic party, showed on its website ticker that it had raised well over $14,053,000,000 since its founding in 2004. The organization had said earlier that day that Biden's announcement to drop out of the race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris pushed the organization's lifetime donations over $14 billion.
That means within less than 12 hours, Biden's announcement garnered well over the $52.8 million Donald Trump's campaign said it raised in a day after the former president's historic felony conviction.
For further comparison, Trump's campaign took six months in 2023 to raise $58 million, federal records viewed by The New York Times showed.
ActBlue is also on track to surpass that record in less than 24 hours.
A Trump spokesperson did not address the fundraising numbers from Democrats but instead chose to criticize Harris in an email to Business Insider.
Related stories
Biden drops out and the money comes rolling in
The Biden campaign is celebrating the wins they can get and touting the $33 million in donations they managed to rake in post-debate
Biden's decision to drop out of the race immediately brought in a rush of support for the party from Democratic leaders, entrepreneurs, and small donors.
Some of those voices, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, supported Biden's endorsement of Harris.
Democrats already beat a record for online contributions earlier on Sunday when they raised more than $30 million within several hours of Biden's announcement. According to The Times, that's the largest single-day donation the party has seen since the 2020 election.
In 2020, ActBlue said it raised $10.8 million in donations within four hours after Biden announced Harris as his running mate.
ActBlue said in May 2022 that the organization also raised $12 million in 2022, within months of the leak of the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion in January.
Biden drops out and the money comes rolling in
- President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race and endorsed his VP, Kamala Harris on Sunday.
- The announcement quickly saw a surge in donations from large and small donors.
- In 5 hours, ActBlue said it received more than $27.5 million in donations on its website.
President Joe Biden withdrew his 2024 candidacy on Sunday, endorsing his running mate Kamala Harris, and the donations have since poured in.
ActBlue, the online campaign donations website for Democrats, said on X that it raised more than $27.5 million "in the first 5 hours of Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign" through grassroots support.
A New York Times analysis of ActBlue's website found that the number has pushed past $30 million — the single largest day for online contributions to the party since the 2020 election.
According to the Times analysis, the average donation per hour to the website was less than $200,000 in the hours before Biden quit. Following Biden's withdrawal, the number skyrocketed to $7.5 million in one hour.
By 9 p.m. ET, ActBlue said it had raised $46.7 million.
"This has been the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle," the organization said on X. "Small-dollar donors are fired up and ready to take on this election."
Twelve hours after Biden's announcement, donations continued to pour into the organization, raising well over $56 million as of this story's publishing. That number surpasses one of the records Donald Trump's campaign set after the former president's conviction.
One major donor with a long-standing relationship with Biden told Business Insider last week that they predicted a new Democratic candidate could usher in a fundraising bonanza, with more than $30 million raised overnight.
With hours left in the day, Democrats appear poised to surpass that number.
Top Democratic donors also have rushed to support the vice president, the Times reported.
One Silicon Valley-based bundler told the Times that they raised more than $1 million in 30 minutes.
Gretchen Sisson, a top Democratic bundler in California, told the publication that her "phone is exploding" following Biden's endorsement.
Real estate developer Jeffrey Gural, who has donated $100,000 to the Democratic party but called for Biden to step down from the race, texted Business Insider that he will support Harris if she becomes the nominee.
"If she is nominee I will donate money as I do not want to see Trump back in White House," Gural wrote.
According to the Times, Harris is well-positioned to receive Biden's $96 million war chest due to the surge in donations.
Dara Lindenbaum, a commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, told the newspaper that Harris could receive the money because her name was on the Biden-Harris campaign committee's registration document
"In my view, this is not an open question," Lendenbaum told the Times.
However, the Times reported that Republicans are likely to file legal challenges against transferring money to Harris's campaign.
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