Harris raises $109 million in first 24 hours as US presidential candidate
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Vice-President Kamala Harris' campaign says 888,000 donors contributed on her first day, 60 per cent of whom were making their first contribution of the 2024 contest.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK - US Vice-President Kamala Harris raised US$81 million (S$109 million) in the first 24 hours since announcing her bid for presidency,
Her campaign said that 888,000 donors had contributed on her first day, 60 per cent of whom were making their first contribution of the 2024 contest. The campaign signed up 43,000 of those donors to make recurring contributions, it said.
The Harris campaign did not break down what share of the US$81 million was raised online by small-dollar donations versus those from major donors.
But ActBlue, the digital donation portal for Democrats up and down the ballot, had processed more than US$90 million in the same 24-hour period, according to a New York Times analysis of the platform’s online ticker of contributions.
The surge of online donations peaked at US$11.5 million in a single hour the evening of July 21 (US time).
The party is quickly coalescing behind Harris. The funds will help rebuild a war chest that was at risk of growing depleted in the weeks of uncertainty after President Joe Biden’s poor debate, as big donors paused fund-raising.
One source of money was a July 21 evening call with a group called Win With Black Women, which the Harris campaign said had netted US$1.6 million.
Overall, July 21 ranked as the third-largest single day in ActBlue’s history. The all-time high came the day after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, when ActBlue processed roughly US$73.5 million.
The second-highest was the date after the first debate between Mr Biden and former president Donald Trump, which coincided with a key fund-raising deadline.
July 22 was on pace to be another huge day for donations, with ActBlue zooming past US$30 million processed by mid-afternoon.
The ActBlue ticker includes all online donations made on the platform, including those for House and Senate candidates, as well as left-leaning nonprofit groups. NYTIMES
