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).