Rocky 2016 LLC
Campaign	United States presidential election, 2016
Candidate	Rocky De La Fuente
Affiliation	Democratic Party American Delta Party Reform Party
Status	Active
Headquarters	San Diego, California[1]
Key people	Seven Wendroff (campaign treasurer)[1]
Receipts	US$7,351,270 (9/30/2016[1])
Slogan	We The People
Website
Official website

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 did not win any delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, but he came in 3rd 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.^[2]

Democratic primary campaign[edit]

Map representing the ballot access of De La Fuente's Democratic Primary campaign

  On primary ballot

  On caucus ballot

  Write-in

  Not on ballot

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews interviews Rocky De La Fuente, U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate

De La Fuente at the "Lesser-Known Candidates Presidential Forum"

De La Fuente filed his candidacy for President of the United States with the Federal Election Commission as a Democrat. He identified himself as a progressive Democrat. He said that he was inspired to run after becoming dissatisfied with the slate of candidates, especially Donald Trump, whom he accused of alienating large segments of the population. On immigration, De La Fuente supported a path to citizenship and was against the wall proposed by Donald Trump.^{[citation needed]}

De La Feunte subsequently has said that the reason he opted to seek the Democratic nominated, rather than the Republican nomination, is that he hoped that the Democratic primary's smaller field of candidates would make it easier for him to stand out.^[3] The Republican party had 17 candidates, more than three times the number of major candidates who sought the Democratic nomination.

Below is a table of the results of primaries in which De La Fuente competed during the Democratic primaries. The total number of votes De La Fuente received can be found in the Votes column. The rank in which De La Fuente came among candidates/ballot options can be found in the Place column.

De La Fuente seen talking to Jorge Ramos at the venue of the Iowa Brown and Black Forum

A car decorated to advertise Rocky's campaign during the Democratic Primaries

A.^ As a write-in.

Polls[edit]

De La Fuente was almost entirely excluded from polling for the Democratic Primary. However, he was included in three statewide polls.^[66]

Texas Democratic Primary

North Carolina Democratic Primary

New Hampshire Democratic Primary

Third-party general election campaign[edit]

Ballot access for the American Delta and Reform Party

  On ballot

  Lawsuit pending

  Write-in

  Not on ballot

De La Fuente founded the American Delta Party as a vehicle to continue his campaign into the general election as a third-party candidate.^[67][68][69] He was nominated as the party's presidential nominee. His running mate was Michael Steinberg of Florida.^[70] On August 8, 2016, De La Fuente was named as the presidential nominee of the Reform Party.^[71]

De La Fuente gained ballot access to 147 electoral votes in 20 states (Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming).^[72] He qualified as a write-in candidate in Arizona, California, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, New York, Washington, and West Virginia.^{[73][74][75][76]}

Debates and forums[edit]

During his campaign for Democratic nomination De La Fuente was not invited to any of the Democratic Party forums and debates. De La Fuente also did not qualify for any of the presidential debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. De La Fuente, however, was invited to and participated in the 2016 Free & Equal Elections debate.

Polls[edit]

De La Fuente's general election campaign was included in very few polls.

Nevada - Five-way race

Election results[edit]

De La Fuente received 33,136 votes in the general election, earning him 0.02% of the total popular vote. He failed to win any 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 La Riva.^[82]

De La Fuente received more votes than any Reform Party presidential nominee since Ralph Nader's 2004 campaign.

Recount effort[edit]

On November 30 (in response to Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein's efforts to request recounts in Wisconsin and several other states which Donald Trump won) De La Fuente requested a partial-recount in Nevada (a state which Hillary Clinton won). He considered this effort to be a "counterbalance" at Stein's efforts. De La Fuente paid the $14,000 that was required for him to request for a recount to be held in a sample from 5% of state-precincts. Nevada's partial-recount was completed December 8, finding no significant discrepancies.^{[83][84][85][86]}

Campaign finances[edit]

Detailed below are the financial statements filled with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) of Rocky 2016 LLC as of November 28, 2016.^[87]

Endorsements[edit]

Activists

• 
  Deez Nuts^[88]


• 
  Brian Moore^[89]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rocky De La Fuente presidential campaign, 2016.

• Rocky 2016 campaign website


• 
  Appearances on C-SPAN
  


• Columnist Dave Barry on meeting De la Fuente


• 
  "De La Fuente: The man challenging Clinton, Sanders". WOOD-TV. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-03-05.