Nicole Cole was president of the Judith P. Hoyer Montessori School PTA in Landover, Md., when Prince George’s County Public Schools, facing financial issues, announced plans to eliminate transportation for children attending the division’s specialty programs.
Cole and others spoke out against the plan, and the division found a way to continue providing transportation.
After Cole’s effective advocacy, a fellow parent encouraged her to seek office.
“She was like, ‘You should run for school board,’” Cole recalled. “Having three young kids at that point, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that.’ But it planted a seed.”
That seed germinated years later when Cole moved to Spotsylvania County to be closer to her family in Richmond following a divorce.
When Cole realized Spotsylvania schools lacked the resources she was accustomed to in Maryland, she formulated a plan to run for the Battlefield District school board seat in 2017. It came to fruition four years later, when she defeated Larry DiBella by 242 votes.
“For me, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I want to be this politician,’” Cole said. “It really was, ‘I want better for the kids in the community.’ I have a passion for seeing young adults become independently successful.”
In 2024, after concluding that she had done all she could at the school board level, Cole announced her candidacy for the House of Delegates in the 66th District.
While the task seemed gargantuan to many — she was challenging 35-year incumbent Republican Bobby Orrock in a district perceived to be a conservative stronghold — Cole had confidence that her work ethic and scrappiness would be well received in an evolving district that was seeking a change in representation.
She was correct.
And it wasn’t just Spotsylvania and Caroline counties, the localities she’ll represent in Richmond, that took notice. Her convincing victory in November reverberated through the entire Commonwealth as it helped Democrats gain a super-majority in the House.
“People were saying the district was ‘lean Republican’ from the history,” Cole said … “But then when you looked at the map by precincts [from 2023], really most of the precincts in HD66 were blue or light blue.”
Del.-Elect Nicole Cole (D-Spotsylvania) speaks during the Region III legislative breakfast Nov. 7 at the Spotsylvania County Public Schools administrative building. (Photo by Taft Coghill Jr.)
District was ripe to be ‘flipped’
Those who follow the political landscape closely say that unhappiness with Republicans at the federal level and the presence of now-Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger on the ballot helped drive up turnout, which increased in the district by 11,701 voters compared to 2023.
Cole racked up 18,831 votes, compared to 2023 challenger Orrock Mark Lux’s 10,786. She also raised $2.5 million to Lux’s $3,075, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
With minimal funds and visibility, Lux was only able to garner 44% of the vote two years ago. However, closer-than-expected losses by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-7th District) in the district signaled to Cole and state Democrats that the 66th may not be as reliably Republican as previously thought, said Joshua Cole (D-Fredericksburg).
“One of the things [state Democrats] look at whenever we determine what districts we’re going after, is the numbers,” Joshua Cole said. “Like how close was the last election … The [margin] was getting smaller and smaller, and we had this wide swath of districts we were looking at.”
Joshua Cole said Democrats’ first order of business was to target districts won by Harris and Biden but are now occupied by Republicans. Tier 2 of that strategy was to pursue districts that Harris and Biden very narrowly lost.
The 66th was initially in a lower tier, but Joshua Cole said Nicole Cole’s early fundraising efforts and grassroots campaign showed state Democrats she was serious about flipping the seat.
Nicole Cole said redistricting in 2022 provided a more even playing field for Democrats. It also helped that the portion of the 66th District that includes Caroline does not include two of the county’s most conservative areas, the Bowling Green and Port Royal districts.
“We knew it was potential for the district to be flipped, but we needed someone we thought could put in the work,” Joshua Cole said. “We have an acronym [EMILY] — ‘Early Money Is Like Yeast.’ It rises. If you knock early and you raise money early, that lets donors throughout the state know that this district is in play. By the time we got to the summer, we saw the work she was putting in.”
Joshua Cole said he has a good relationship with Orrock, who served as his mentor in the House when he first entered in 2018.
But he acknowledged that Orrock never had a challenger like Nicole Cole pushing him.
“We saw that it was going to be hard for him to catch up once Nicole came in and started putting in the heavy work,” Joshua Cole said. “She had a good group of volunteers, good staff, and people were just excited.”
‘It’s going to get bluer’
The energy was felt both in Spotsylvania, where Cole is a known commodity from her time on the school board, and in Caroline, where residents weren’t quite as familiar.
However, she quickly ingrained herself in the community by knocking on doors, attending church services, helping the high school softball team renovate its field to host its first state playoff game, meeting with teachers and school administrators, and being visible at many other community events.
“When she came to us, she had a solid plan and what we did here in Caroline, is we put that engine together,” said Caroline resident JD Young, who represents the Reedy Church District on the county’s planning commission … “We did everything we possibly could to endorse her.”
Nicole Cole earned 52% of the vote in the county.
Caroline was once a reliably blue locality, having voted twice for President Barack Obama and only voting for a Republican president three times since reconstruction prior to President Donald Trump’s victory in the county and the nation in 2016.
But despite that history, the county hadn’t been represented by a Democrat at the state level for more than 35 years. Orrock is a county native and graduate of Ladysmith High School. Since first taking office in 1990, he’d coasted to victories in 18 bids for re-election.
Kathy Friese, the vice chair of the county’s Democratic committee, said it’s significant for the county to have Nicole Cole as an advocate. Friese said Nicole Cole is organized, tenacious and a good listener. But she cautioned that county Democrats shouldn’t let up now that she’s set to be sworn in on Jan. 14.
“I don’t think Democrats should rest on their laurels,” Friese said. “It’s a lot of work. We have to convince people that what we have to say benefits them, and that our positions really help the rural people in our county. We can’t take that for granted.”
Nicole Cole said she foresees the district developing a deeper blue shade. She said her victory will not be an anomaly “because I’m going to keep engaging people in this community from Caroline to Spotsylvania.” She helped organize a Political Action Committee in Spotsylvania that supported four school board candidates who all won their elections in 2023.
There are no Republican delegates along Interstate 95 from Fairfax County down to Caroline. Del. Phillip Scott (R-Spotsylvania) represents the western part of Spotsylvania and a portion of Orange County.
“My intent is to grow the numbers of people who are actually involved, educate our communities on the legislative process so they can be involved in making a difference,” she said … “It’s going to get bluer because that’s my intent. I’m going to do the work.”
‘A fearless advocate’
Nicole Cole is Hampton Roads native but moved to Henrico County at a young age. She graduated from Highland Springs High School, and then from the University of Maryland in College Park. She earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois with a focus on finance and health services management.
She owns a financial advisory business, and she previously worked in pharmaceutical sales.
Some of her key campaign issues include funding for public schools, affordable housing, mental health advocacy, women’s reproductive rights, and repealing Virginia’s status as a “right-to-work” state. Her campaign consistently ran television advertisements targeting Orrock for his stance against abortion.
Spotsylvania Superintendent Clint Mitchell, who Nicole Cole helped hire in 2024, said the school division has high expectations of Cole as a delegate.
“She has been a fearless advocate for students with a focus on mental health as well as providing leadership during difficult times,” Mitchell said. “I believe she will make an excellent delegate for the constituents in Spotsylvania and Caroline County because she is so passionate about her beliefs.”
Nicole Cole said that she doesn’t want to get too bogged down with statewide or national political issues because she wants to ensure she spends most of her time concentrating on local matters.
Joshua Cole offered her advice on the campaign trail. He said that although he has more experience as a delegate, Nicole Cole provides him with valuable insights as well.
“She’s a go-getter. She’s also a fighter,” Joshua Cole said. “We’ve seen the work she’s done on the school board. We see the things she’s done to try to bring more resources to students. So, when she gets to Richmond, she’s going to be doing the same thing … So, I think the people of Caroline and Spotsylvania, the people who have been overlooked for years, are finally going to have a voice and an advocate that’s going to fight for them.”
