The donation surge in the last day is the largest 24-hour fundraising sum in presidential history.

Democrats have poured $81m (£62m) in donations into Vice-President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday.

It is the largest 24-hour period of campaign funding in presidential history with more than 888,000 donors making contributions of less than $200 in the day after Mr Biden stepped aside.

“Grassroots supporters are energized and excited to support her as the Democratic nominee,” ActBlue, the progressive donation platform, said on X.

Donors who had pulled back their funding over concerns about Mr Biden’s age say they now intend to resume their support for the party.

The party raised over $27.5m in the first five hours of Ms Harris’ presidential campaign. That number nearly doubled by the end of the day. In 24 hours, the sum broke a presidential fundraising record.

  • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    7 months ago

    It’s kinda insane to me that any presidential candidate is pulling in 81 million dollars. Why do they possibly need that much money for campaigning? It seems absurd.

    • dan@upvote.au
      0·
      7 months ago

      It seems crazy to me too. The limits on spending for election campaigns are far smaller in some other countries, even after adjusting for population size.

      • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        Without passing judgment on whether it’s wise or not (though… clearly the current paradigm is not), the legal rationale is that the free speech implications of the US Constitution’s first amendment are extremely broad and permissive, even more so for explicitly political speech, and that money spent on political campaigns is effectively money spent to disseminate political speech. Restrictions therefore are very few, very light, and even where they exist they are very easy to effectively work around while remaining legal.

    • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      America is huge, and the sheer number of media - social media, cable, network TV, streaming, radio, newspaper, magazines, internet, and so on - means that if you want to reach people, a little more money will always reach additional audiences.

      From there, it’s just an arm’s race with no upper limit, since each party is desperate to not let the other out-message them.

    • TunaCowboy@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 months ago

      Please think of the media owner billionaires enjoying the most privileged and luxurious life that earth has to offer.

      They need that money desperately, because it’s not enough for them to win, they require that everyone else be as miserable as they are.

    • taiyang@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 months ago

      To add to others, they also have to run field offices in so many places, especially battlegrounds. It’s not just ads, you need locals.

      Imagine opening up 50+ offices in each major European nation, staffed with both volunteers and paid folk.