The online fund raising platform ActBlue raised $13.7 billion for Democratic candidates and causes by June 2024. It operates as a political action committee (PAC) but acts as a conduit, meaning contributions are legally made by individuals, but not the PAC itself. Federal law puts limits on donations to candidates and PACS, preventing wealthy donors from pouring millions into candidates’ coffers, though they often find ways around that using dark money groups or creating adjacent organizations that do political work without explicitly supporting candidates.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer and House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, claim that the U.S. Treasury has identified hundreds of suspicious transactions linked to ActBlue, potentially involving money laundering, fraud, or illicit foreign contributions from countries like China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
Social media sleuths have recently suggested that USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) funds were channeled through Democrat-aligned NGOs to ActBlue, which then distributed them as small-dollar donations to Democratic campaigns. Curiously, donations fell dramatically after USAID funding dried up. However, correlation doesn’t necessarily prove causation, as the timing of USAID funding cut aligns with a natural post-election slowdown, and no USAID-NGO funding tied to ActBlue has yet been officially confirmed.
ActBlue’s lack of stringent donor verification, such as not requiring credit Card Verification Values (CVV) numbers until August 2024 enables “straw donations,” where large sums are broken down into smaller contributions made under unsuspecting donors’ names, in a practice known as “smurfing.”
Through ActBlue, Arizona US Senator Ruben Gallego received 2,004 individual donations from a random guy in Pennsylvania. Gallego was surprisingly popular with small donors from Massachusetts ($8 million), including 57 donations from an unemployed woman named "Virginia Smith" during his 2024 campaign.
Investigations by GOP led committees and state attorneys general, have flagged suspicious patterns. A 75-year-old woman reportedly made 6,470 donations totaling $37,446 between 2022 and 2024, averaging $5.79 per donation, An 88-year-old retired Yale professor reportedly made 7,539 totaling $213,163, according to FEC records, and he signed an affidavit saying, “I believe this does not reflect my donation frequency or dollars I have donated.” A 91-year-old woman appears to have made 2,591 donations totaling $41,000, according to FEC filings. She also signed an affidavit denying making the reported donations. A 75-year-old woman looks to have made 4,270 small donations adding up to $32,323. She too signed an affidavit. An Austin Texas resident had more than 10,000 donations totaling $106,304. A Maryland woman named Lori Ball had a reported 500 donations totaing $7,000, but insisted she only donated $5 monthly donations. Mark Block, a Wisconsin Republican strategist filed a lawsuit, stating that his name was used to make a 35 donations totaling nearly $900 to Kamala Harris’ campaign using his name, without his knowledge. Cindy Nowe, a Maryland senior, supposedly donated over 1,000 times to ActBlue in 2022, totaling $18,849.77, which works out to 3 donations a day every day all year long.
Seven senior ActBlue executives resigned beginning on February 21st of this year, including the customer service director, partnerships director, associate general counsel (the highest-ranking legal officer), an engineer with 16 years at the company, the assistant research director, an HR official, and the chief revenue officer. The pressure of congressional probes, alongside allegations of money laundering and fraud, may have created a hostile work environment or prompted execs to distance themselves from potential legal risks. The lack of transparency about the executives’ motives invites speculation: were they fleeing a sinking ship, or were they pushed out to protect the organization from scrutiny? The lawyer, after resigning, posted a now-deleted Slack message warning colleagues, “ We have Whistleblower Policies for a reason ,” before losing his access to internal systems.
The allegations against ActBlue highlight real vulnerabilities in its donor verification processes, potentially enabling fraud or exploitation. The thousands of small contributions from unlikely donors warrant investigation, as they could indicate either systemic reporting errors or deliberate money laundering.
As Democrats gear up for the 2026 elections the potential fall out could give Republicans an edge on fund raising using their similar WinRed online platform.