Quite possibly the most important thing to know about Rich Nicoloff is that he is small town guy who values community. As the son of a school administrator & a teacher, Rich lived in 4 different small towns in Illinois & Vermont & attended 5 different schools before graduating high school in 1988. He has experienced the positives & negatives of small towns & has witnessed both the decline & growth that can occur.

Rich Nicoloff is proud member of Generation X who grew up idolizing Ronald Reagan & Michael J. Fox’s character, the conservative Alex P. Keaton. Rich first got involved in politics as the President of the DeKalb County (IL) Republicans & volunteering for Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s campaign & the conservative political group, Citizens for a Sound Economy. After running & losing a campaign for a city council seat in his 20’s, Rich put politics on the back burner to move with his wife, Kristie, to the warmer & greener pasture of Charlotte, NC where Kristie had a great job offer at an interior design & architecture firm. Rich then got a job working in sales for Wolf Camera, eventually moving into management.

In late 2000 Rich & Kristie met with Kristie’s OB/GYN about starting a family & found out in December that Kristie was pregnant. Life was about to change dramatically for the Nicoloffs! After looking at childcare options Rich realized that he would be working Monday through Thursday, just to cover the bill for each week. After much discussion & number crunching, Rich & Kristie decided that it would be best for Rich to be a stay-at-home Dad & start his nature photography business. The Nicoloffs first child was born just before September 11, 2001 and that is when Rich’s political ideals began to change after seeing how fear led to government overreach led by the Republican Party.

Fast forward to 2008 we find Rich Nicoloff featured on NBC news nationally as a stay-at-home Dad of 3 amazing kids during a time when stay-at-home Dads were extremely rare. 2008 is also the year that Rich voted for his first Democratic Presidential candidate. Disgusted by a rise in fear mongering, the economy sinking into a recession, restricted freedoms, and the rise of Christian Nationalism in the Republican Party, Rich now an Independent voted for Barack Obama. During this time, Charlotte had grown too big too fast under its Republican mayor & no longer felt like a community where the Nicoloffs wanted to raise their children. Also wanting to live closer to the mountains that Rich loved to photograph, the Nicoloffs set their sights on the Upstate of South Carolina, specifically the small community of Travelers Rest.

In 2010 Rich Nicoloff & his family moved to Traveler Rest, the beautiful growing community where they still live & thrive. Rich got involved in the local community pretty quickly by joining the board of the Trillium Arts Centre, and then opening a gallery for his photography business in the just starting to bloom downtown. However, as the downtown bloomed & rents started to rise, Rich closed the gallery & moved his business back into his home.

Fast forward again to 2025 and Rich Nicoloff has watched his neighbors buy into the false narrative that Donald Trump & the Republican Party are going to save the middle class while they continue, instead, to sink the economy. Rich starts getting involved with the local Democratic Party, something that a young Rich Nicoloff would never have thought impossible. However, a middle aged Rich has seen a lot, learned a lot, & cannot condone what his former political party has become. Rich’s youngest has just gone off to college, Rich finally finishes his Bachelor’s Degree, & is wondering what his future looks like. March 2026 rolls around & Rich learns that no one, Republican or Democrat, has stepped up to challenge the “do little” incumbent representative, so he decides to DO SOMETHING. Say “Hello” to Rich Nicoloff, the common sense Democratic candidate for South Carolina’s House of Representatives District 17. Rich is a caring, pragmatic, creative leader who has been listening to his neighbors and will put in the hard work to move South Carolina forward for all of it’s citizens and ensure that the voices of the Northern Greenville County communities can be heard at the state level.