ActBlue

ActBlue is an American Democratic Party political action committee (PAC) and fundraising platform founded in 2004. ActBlue is a major part of the Democratic Party's fundraising infrastructure. As of 2025, ActBlue reports that it has raised $16 billion for Democratic candidates and causes since it was established. ActBlue is organized as a PAC, but it serves as a conduit for processing individual contributions made through the platform. Under federal law, these contributions are made by individuals and are not considered PAC donations.

History

ActBlue was founded in 2004 by Benjamin Rahn and Matt DeBergalis. Rahn and DeBergalis were joined in 2005 by Jonathan Zucker and Erin Hill. Zucker took over as executive director in 2007; he was replaced by Hill in 2009. In 2023, Regina Wallace-Jones replaced Hill as president and CEO of ActBlue.

Both the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential nominees, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, used ActBlue during their primary and general election campaigns. Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 primary campaigns also used ActBlue for fundraising. Sanders' use of ActBlue was particularly notable as it represented the first time a major Democratic presidential candidate eschewed money from super PACs in favor of grassroots fundraising. This strategy would later be replicated by other Democratic political figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, all the candidates used ActBlue.

In 2023, ActBlue announced that it was laying off roughly 17 percent of its staff as part of what the group said was a "restructuring" that would help ensure "long-term financial sustainability".

In December 2024, 142 consultants, campaign staff, nonprofit staff, technology vendors, donor organizers, donors, and academics signed a letter to ActBlue saying the organization needed to do a "better job" of protecting Democratic contributors from being "exploited". In February 2025, seven senior staffers resigned from the organization. Resignations included the highest ranking legal officer, the vice president for customer service, and a technology staff member who had been with the organization for 14 years. Two unions representing ActBlue employees wrote to the board noting an "alarming pattern" of departures that was "eroding our confidence in the stability of the organization". , the reasons for these departures were not publicly known.

Organization

ActBlue does not endorse individual candidates. Use of the platform is open to Democratic and progressive campaigns, candidates, committees, and 501(c)4 organizations. 501(c)3 organizations are able to use the platform through ActBlue Charities.

Groups that use ActBlue pay a 3.95% credit card processing fee. As a nonprofit, ActBlue runs its own separate fundraising program and accepts tips on contributions to pay for its expenses.

Campaign donation reporting

ActBlue reports the donors' names and amounts for all contributions processed to federal campaigns to the Federal Election Commission, regardless of the amount. This information is listed on the Internet. In contrast, small donors who contribute up to $200 directly to a federal campaign are not automatically reported to the FEC.

In 2024, the Institute for Free Speech sued the FEC over the discrepancy whereby small donors utilizing conduits ActBlue or WinRed are automatically made public but same-sized direct donations are not.

Fundraising

ActBlue raised $19 million in its first three years, from 2004 to 2007. In the 2005–2006 campaign, the site raised $17 million for 1500 Democratic candidates, with $15.5 million going to congressional campaigns. By August 2007, the site had raised $25.5 million.

In 2016, ActBlue took in nearly $800 million in small-dollar donations.

In the 2018 midterm elections, Democratic candidates fundraised $1.6 billion through ActBlue's platform.

In 2019, ActBlue raised roughly $1 billion for Democratic campaigns. ''The Daily Beast'' noted that between January and mid-July 2019, ActBlue brought in $420 million.

In 2020, several fundraising records were broken. In the week following the murder of George Floyd, on May 31, over $19 million was raised, the highest single-day total so far that year. On June 1, that yearly record was again broken with $20 million in donations. Over half of all donations in the following week went to charitable (non-political) causes, including one ActBlue page devoted to a bail fund which raised over $1.5 million from over 20,000 donors. In the day following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, over $70 million was donated through ActBlue, again breaking the single-day fundraising record.

In 2022, ActBlue brought in $20.6 million on the day the Supreme Court issued its opinion in ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization''.

In the first 24 hours following the launch of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign, small-dollar and many first-time donors raised $81 million through ActBlue, making it the biggest 24 hour period ever on the platform for dollars raised sitewide. Over the first weekend, they raised $100 million from 1.1 million donors.

Fraud allegations

In 2024, Republican public officials in several states launched probes into ActBlue over allegations of donor fraud, including Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. ActBlue called Miyares's investigation a "partisan political attack and scare tactic". ActBlue had previously been the target of fraud accusations by political activists, though experts in campaign finance law have expressed doubt about the veracity of these claims.

Republican members of Congress have also expressed concerns that ActBlue was not verifying donor credit card information using Card Verification Value (CVV) codes. A spokesperson for ActBlue said in August 2024 that they had begun expanding CVV verification in 2023 and were now requiring it for all new credit card donations. ActBlue lobbied against a Republican-backed bill introduced in September 2024 that would require CVV codes for political donations and prohibit contributions via gift cards or prepaid cards.

In April 2025, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum "to crack down" on alleged illegal straw donor and foreign contributions in American elections, following reports and congressional investigations regarding potentially unlawful activities through ActBlue and other online fundraising platforms. The claim in Trump's executive order that ActBlue permits such donations is unsubstantiated. The House investigation cited by the executive order failed to note that ActBlue had discovered and returned many of the alleged illegal transactions, and ActBlue has in the meantime added further controls.

See also

* Pod Save America
* WinRed – created in 2019 as a Republican version of ActBlue for small-donor fundraising

References

External links

* {{official, http://www.actblue.com

ActBlue – Ballotpedia

2004 establishments in Massachusetts
Democratic Party (United States) organizations
Organizations established in 2004
Second presidency of Donald Trump