California businessman Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente successfully qualified Tuesday to become a Republican candidate for Senate in Florida, despite already being on the ballot for Senate in California.
De La Fuente, a multi-millionaire San Diego developer, will face Gov. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) in the Aug. 28 Republican primary after he qualified to be a candidate, according to the Associated Press.
De La Fuente is already on the ballot for U.S. Senate in his home state of California. He has run for several offices in the past. He ran for U.S. Senate in Florida in 2016 and was defeated in the Democratic primary.
In a phone interview, De La Fuente maintained it's legal for him to run in two states as long as he's living in the state before he's sworn into office. He says he already owns property in Florida.
In addition to his loss in Florida's 2016 Senate race, De La Fuente spent $7.5 million on a failed presidential bid in 2016 and was unsuccessful in his mayoral run in New York City last year.
De La Fuente is not the first to declare candidacy in multiple states in the same year. A candidate for Congress claimed in 2013 it was legal for him to simultaneously run for a party's nomination in Georgia and three other states. The candidate, Allan Levene, said he must be a resident of the state where he is running at the time of the general election but not prior to obtaining a party's nomination in the primary. Politifact determined several constitutional scholars agreed with the assessment and Levene was legally able to run in multiple states.