Rocky De La Fuente


Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente Guerra is an American businessman and politician.
A perennial candidate, De La Fuente was the presidential nominee of both the Reform Party and his self-created American Delta Party in the 2016 election. That year he was also an unsuccessful candidate in the Democratic primary for United States senator from Florida and for the Democratic presidential nomination.
During the 2018 elections, De La Fuente was on the ballot in nine states' primaries for United States Senate, all of which he lost. He campaigned as a critic of President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
In the 2020 United States presidential election, he is running for the nomination of the Republican Party, and has secured the nominations of the Reform Party and a new party, the Alliance Party. In the same year he has also run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat for California's 21st congressional district, but lost in the March 2020 primary.

Early life and education

De La Fuente was born on October 10, 1954, at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California, the son of automobile dealer and business park developer Roque Antonio De La Fuente Alexander and Bertha Guerra Yzaguirre. His parents raised him in Mexico, and in the United States. He was educated by his parents and the Legionaries of Christ, the Marist Brothers, the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart, Daughters of the Holy Spirit and the Jesuits. De La Fuente earned a B.S. in physics and mathematics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and studied accounting and business administration at Anahuac University near Mexico City.

Career

Between 1976 and 1990, De La Fuente acquired 28 automobile franchises for Alfa Romeo, American Motors Corporation, Audi, Cadillac, Chrysler, Daihatsu, Dodge, GMC, Honda, and other brands. He also opened three banks, assisted living facilities in Los Angeles and Lemon Grove, California, and eleven currency exchange locations in the United States and Mexico.
In 1997, De La Fuente received a settlement of $38.7 million from San Diego County for 524 acres of land belonging to him and his father that the county had taken to build a new county jail.
In 2004, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued an order barring De La Fuente from participating in any FDIC-insured institution. De La Fuente appealed and the 9th Circuit reversed half the order and advised the FDIC to reconsider its sentence, stating that "De La Fuente's use of as his personal piggy bank was in shocking disregard of sound banking practices and the law to the detriment of depositors, shareholders, and the public. Nevertheless, we remand this matter to the Board for it to consider, in light of this disposition, whether this extraordinary sanction remains deserved."
In November 2015, De La Fuente and the city of San Diego settled a decades-long legal dispute over land-use issues regarding a 312-acre area that De La Fuente is developing in Otay Mesa.
As of 2015, De La Fuente owned businesses and properties in Mexico, the United States, and Uruguay. He sees potential profit to be found in the border wall being erected by the Trump administration, as his properties include 2000 acres along the border, surrounding areas that the government will be using. He intends to set a high price for the land, saying "I'm in the business of making money."

Political campaigns

2016 presidential

De La Fuente campaigned for president in the 2016. He sought the Democratic Party's nomination during their presidential primaries. His campaign did not win a single primary or a single delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
De La Fuente founded the American Delta Party and ran as that party's nominee with his running mate Michael Steinberg. He was also the presidential nominee of the Reform Party, which had ballot access in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Mississippi. Although De La Fuente's platform was at odds with the Reform Party platform he was able to get his supporters to vote within its primaries. De La Fuente received 33,136 votes in the general election, 0.02% of the total popular vote. He received no electoral votes. In the popular vote De La Fuente placed eighth overall, behind the Democratic Party's Hillary Clinton, Republican Party's Donald Trump, Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson, Green Party's Jill Stein, independent Evan McMullin, Constitution Party's Darrell Castle, and Party for Socialism and Liberation's Gloria LaRiva.
In 2016, De La Fuente and Stein sued the state of Oklahoma over the state's high requirement for petitions. They dismissed the suit in 2017 after Oklahoma eased their requirements. In February 2018, De La Fuente won two court cases slightly easing ballot access requirements in Virginia and Washington. De La Fuente's history of ballot access suits and his victories received a write-up from the Federal Judicial Center.

2016 senatorial

On June 20, 2016, De La Fuente paid the $10,440 qualifying fee to run for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 election for US senator from Florida, over a seat then 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.

2017 mayoral

De La Fuente sought the Republican nomination for Mayor of New York City in the 2017 election. He joined the race claiming that private polling data showed him defeating the two Republican candidates who were then entered, Paul Massey and Michel Faulkner.
De La Fuente's candidacy ran into problems with his lack of residency. City law requires candidates to be residents of the city prior to the election. De La Fuente's campaign said that he had attempted to purchase an apartment, that the building's management refused to interview him because he was Hispanic, and that they might make a federal court case out of this matter.
On March 28, De La Fuente debated mayoral contenders Kevin Coenen, Mike Tolkin, independent Bo Dietl, Democratic challenger Sal Albanese and Republican Faulkner in an event hosted by the Reform Party of New York State.
After both Faulkner and Massey suspended their campaigns, only De La Fuente and Nicole Malliotakis remained in the Republican primary. However, two Malliotakis supporters, with the blessing of her campaign, filed objections to De La Fuente's ballot petition signatures. On August 1, the New York City Board of Elections found that De La Fuente did not have sufficient valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, effectively ending De La Fuente's candidacy and leaving Malliotakis unopposed for the nomination.

2018 senatorial

De La Fuente ran for US Senate in nine states in 2018, seeking to show problems with the current election process, which he called "Loony Toons!" On February 26, 2018, he 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. He came ninth place out of a field of 35, garnering 135,109 votes for 2% of the total. In a primary system where only the top two make it to the final ballot, this ended his candidacy. On August 8, his candidacy for Senate in Washington state came to an end in the open primary where he was one of the 32 candidates. In Florida, De La Fuente lost the Republican primary to his only challenger, Governor Rick Scott. He also lost primaries in Wyoming, Hawaii, Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, and Rhode Island.
Some commentators criticized De La Fuente's campaign efforts. The Washington Post noted that in both Hawaii and Vermont, he drew enough votes that he theoretically may have changed the election, as had those same votes had been redirected to the second place candidate instead, that candidate would have won. Jim Camden, a columnist for The Columbian, wrote that "for this year's primaries it's clear the biggest loser was Rocky De La Fuente."

2020 presidential

Nomination process

In January 2017, De La Fuente stated in a court filing that he intended to again seek the Democratic Party nomination in the 2020 presidential election. He reiterated plans to seek the presidency in the wake of his 2018 election failures.
However, De La Fuente ran for the Republican nomination instead. As of January 30, 2020, he had raised $17,253 from outside sources and had loaned his own campaign $15.13 million, of which the campaign had returned $8.2 million. For the Republican primaries, has qualified as a candidate in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont, and filed in New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. He filed in Tennessee but did not end up on the ballot.
His candidacy survived a ballot access challenge in Alabama, but he withdrew from the state before the ballot was set. He also withdrew from Arkansas, Colorado, and Missouri. His withdrawals from Arkansas and Utah came too late to keep him from appearing on the ballot. He chose to remain in Connecticut's delayed primary, despite pressure from the state's Republican Party chairman. Connecticut's Secretary of the State Denise Merrill then also requested that De La Fuente allow himself to be removed from the ballot, as Trump had already secured enough delegates to win and the voting during the COVID-19 pandemic would put the public's health at risk.
As of March 10, he had received 0.36% of the 9.9 million votes that had been cast in Republican primaries and had not earned any delegates.
His failure to make the initial candidate list in Michigan led both to his stating an intention to get on the ballot through submission of petitions and to his campaign manager filing a suit on behalf of a Michigan voter seeking to have De La Fuente on the ballot. He did not end up on the ballot. The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a similar petition on January 9; in that state, the Republican party dictated the candidate list, and allowed for write-in candidates. Some states are foregoing Republican primaries for the 2020 cycle, with the Republican leadership in those states having selected incumbent president Donald Trump as their nominee. De La Fuente has named Trump, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and various state Republican parties in a suit claiming that there was inappropriate coordination in an attempt to prevent competing candidates for the nomination.
In 2019 De La Fuente filed one of five lawsuits that arose against a California law requiring candidates to release their tax returns in order to appear on the state's primary ballots. That law, which was seen as targeted against the incumbent Donald Trump, was blocked by a federal judge. De La Fuente also requested a U.S. Supreme Court review of a Ninth Circuit court decision which approved California's requirements for ballot access by independent candidates, and mounted a federal challenge to Georgia's granting political parties ultimate control over who appears on their ballots; parties in Florida and Minnesota have similar control. After the lawsuit was filed, Georgia's Republican party submitted a ballot listing only incumbent Donald Trump as a candidate, choosing not to list De La Fuente and three other candidates who had been under consideration.
During the run-up to the primaries, Libertarian Party chairman Nicholas Sarwark suggested that De La Fuente run for his party's nomination, an option which the candidate considered. He did not, however, join the candidate list.
On April 25, De La Fuente became the first Presidential nominee of the Alliance Party, with Darcy Richardson as his running mate.
On June 20, he received the nomination of the Reform Party, receiving 17 out of the 21 delegate votes cast.

General election

The De La Fuente/Richardson ticket is slated to be on the ballot in Florida under the Reform Party; in South Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, and Mississippi under the Alliance Party;, in Michigan under an agreement between the Alliance Party and the Natural Law Party of Michigan. There are efforts to get him onto the ballot in other states.

2020 congressional

De La Fuente ran as a Republican in the campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives seat for California's 21st district. 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 and fourth 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.

Personal life

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 and successfully won the Democratic nomination for Texas's 27th US congressional district. 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.

Electoral history

Presidential elections

U.S. Senate primaries

;2018 Senate primaries
StatePrimary typeDateVotes%Winner
CaliforniaNonpartisan blanketJune 5135,2792.1Dianne Feinstein, Kevin de León
WashingtonNonpartisan blanketAug 85,7240.34Maria Cantwell, Susan Hutchison
HawaiiRepublicanAug 113,0759.4Ron Curtis
MinnesotaRepublicanAug 1417,0515.9Jim Newberger
VermontRepublicanAug 141,0572.9Brooke Paige
WyomingRepublicanAug 211,2801.1John Barrasso
FloridaRepublicanAug 28187,20911.4Rick Scott
DelawareRepublicanSep 61,9985.3Robert Arlett
Rhode IslandRepublicanSep 123,72212.3%Robert Flanders

;2020 congressional