In 2004, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued an order barring De La Fuente from participating in an FDIC-insured institution. De La Fuente went to court and the case was resolved.
He owns businesses and properties in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, United States, and Uruguay.
De La Fuente ran a presidential campaign in the 2016 election. De La Fuente sought the Democratic Party's nomination during their presidential primaries. De La Fuente's campaign came in Third behind Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
De La Fuente founded the American Delta Party and ran as that party's nominee with his running mate Michael Steinberg and was nominated as the presidential candidate of the Reform Party which had ballot access in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota and Mississippi.
On June 20, 2016, De La Fuente paid the $10,440 qualifying fee to run for the Democratic nomination of the 2016 Senate election in Florida to decide the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat occupied by Republican Marco Rubio. He competed with Patrick Murphy, Alan Grayson, Pam Keith, and Reginald Luster for the nomination. Murphy won the nomination; De La Fuente came in fourth-place out of five candidates, receiving 60,606 votes (5.38% of the overall vote).
In 2018, De La Fuente, ran for US Senate in seven Republican primaries and the California and Washington open primaries to show how problematic the current election process was. He lost the primaries in Wyoming (1,280 votes, 1.1% of the vote), Hawaii (3,065 votes, 9.4% of the vote ), Minnesota (17,051 votes, 5.9% of the vote), Vermont (1,057 votes, 2.9% of the vote), Delaware (1,998 votes, 5.3% of the vote), and Rhode Island (3,722 votes, 12.3% of the vote). In Florida, he got 11.4% of the vote against Republican Gov. Rick Scott. He also filed to run for the 2018 Senate election in California under the Republican Party to unseat incumbent Dianne Feinstein, but failed in the June 5 primary.
On January 9, 2017, De La Fuente announced his plans to run for president again for the Democratic nomination in 2020. He soon filed to run for the Republican nomination. As of September 30, 2019, he had raised $6,735 from outside sources and had loaned his own campaign $10.18 million. He has qualified as a candidate in Alabama, Delaware, Vermont, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Texas.
On July 30, De La Fuente filed a federal lawsuit against the new California law that says no one can be on a presidential primary ballot unless he or she reveals the last five years of federal income tax returns. On August 6, 2019, he filed a brief on it.
De La Fuente ran as a Republican in the campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives seat for California's 21st district. (Unlike most other states, California has no law prohibiting simultaneously running for the presidency and for Congress.) His son Ricardo ran for the same seat as a Democrat. Neither De La Fuente lives in the district. Rocky felt that his candidacy would help his son's chances of getting the seat, which was the outcome he desired. Neither De La Fuente succeeded in this primary, coming in third (Ricardo) and fourth (Rocky) in a four-candidate jungle primary in which the top two vote-getters compete in the general election. However, on the same day, Ricardo, who had previously run for the House from California's 34th and Florida's 23rd districts, won the Democratic primary for U.S. representative for Texas's 27th district, but went on to lose the general election.
De La Fuente married Katayoun Yazdani.
De La Fuente has five children. De La Fuente has a stated goal of creating a political dynasty. Two of his sons have also sought office.
His son Ricardo "Ricky" De La Fuente has sought several congressional seats. He first ran as a Democrat in the 2017 California's 34th congressional district special election. He then, in 2018, unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Florida's 24th US congressional district. In 2020 he unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat in the California's 21st US congressional district (competing against his father, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican) and successfully won the Democratic nomination for Texas's 27th US congressional district (where he hopes to become a resident). In 2020, Ricardo was also originally running for the Democratic nomination in Florida's 24th US congressional district.
In 2020, his son Roque De La Fuente III entered the Democratic presidential primaries in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire, Texas, and Utah.
Rocky De La Fuente 2016 presidential campaign
Rocky De La Fuente ran a third-party campaign for the presidency of the United States in the 2016 election. De La Fuente had sought the Democratic Party's nomination during their presidential primaries. De La Fuente's campaign did not win a single delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, but he came in fourth by total votes received.
De La Fuente founded the American Delta Party, and ran as its presidential nominee with running mate Michael Steinberg. He was also nominated as the presidential nominee of the Reform Party which has ballot access in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
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