Times Union – This Albany native was fired by Hegseth. Now she’s headed to Congress.

ALBANY — Nancy Stewart Lacore called an old friend last year with an unusual proposition: She was considering a run for Congress.

It was an improbable prospect for someone whose 35-year Navy career had taken her from the cockpit of a helicopter to the rank of three-star vice admiral. But after her abrupt dismissal from the military, Lacore, a moderate Democrat, was weighing a new kind of service — representing a reliably Republican South Carolina district in Congress.

The Albany native raised the possibility during a September 2025 phone call with Rachel McEneny, a longtime friend and fellow alumna of the Academy of the Holy Names. Lacore graduated from the all-girls Catholic school in 1986; McEneny followed in 1990.

Lacore’s victory this week was one of the more striking parts of a “blue tsunami” in which Democrats retook the majority of the U.S. House and Senate.

“I struggled to figure out what was next for me,” Lacore told MSNOW after winning her party’s nomination in June. “But the one thing I couldn’t shake was this feeling that I wasn’t done serving.”

McEneny said Lacore had been thinking seriously about the political landscape, including the prospect of running in a district that President Donald J. Trump carried by 13 percentage points in 2024.

Lacore started mulling the idea after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed her from a post overseeing the Navy Reserve, where she was responsible for roughly 60,000 sailors. Her dismissal, which wasn’t publicly explained, was part of a broader purge of the military’s senior leadership. Roughly two dozen high-ranking officials were fired or resigned. Critics said the effort disproportionately targeted Black and female leaders.

McEneny, who said her preschool teacher was Lacore’s mother, had followed a different path into public service. She became a senior aide to Kirsten Gillibrand during the New York Democrat’s years in the House and her early tenure in the Senate.

“We had some really, really fruitful conversations about running in a Republican district, which is what Kirsten did,” McEneny said.

Lacore was also motivated by broader concerns about the direction of the country.

“I’m really worried, most importantly, about our democracy,” Lacore said, according to McEneny.

Lacore’s campaign declined to make her available for an interview.

McEneny connected Lacore with U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, a veteran Democratic congressman from Amsterdam.

“He was like, ‘Let me get her phone number,’” McEneny said. “He was all in.”

A few months later, in January, Lacore formally entered the race. She ultimately defeated Jenny Costa Honeycutt, a Republican Charleston County Council member, in a fierce contest over a coastal South Carolina district represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace. Mace unsuccessfully ran for governor rather than seeking another term.

This week’s Democratic wave was fueled by a series of once-unthinkable upsets in GOP strongholds, including South Carolina. The performance was by some measures the Republicans’ worst drubbing since the post-Watergate election of 1974.

But Lacore’s race was far from a blowout.

The incoming representative won just shy of 50% of the vote, beating Honeycutt by about a percentage point, with nearly all votes counted. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed the race from “lean Republican” to “toss-up” in the final week before the election as Lacore outpaced Honeycutt on fundraising.

Lacore criticized Hegseth on the campaign trail, including his handling of the deeply unpopular war with Iran. But McEneny, who followed the campaign from her home in Oregon, said Lacore focused on cost-of-living issues rather than personal grievances.

But Lacore has entertained the possibility of impeaching the defense secretary.

“I’ll certainly look at that if that’s what comes up,” she told reporters on Wednesday, according to the Post and Courier. “But my focus, again, is on delivering what I promised to the people who are putting me into this office.”

Trump has conceded that wars in the Middle East, for which Hegseth has become a prominent defender, likely cost the GOP the midterms.

Lacore is one of at least eight female military veterans from her party who won their bids for Congress this cycle. In New York, Democrat Cait Conley bested GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in the lower Hudson Valley.

“She’s inspiring,” said Kristin Devoe, one of Lacore’s classmates at Holy Names. “A life-altering thing happened to her, and she fought and she won.”

Lacore told students of her alma mater in an address in 2023 that she developed a sense of resilience at the Albany school.

“Although life does not always go as planned, things will work out if you fall on what you are learning here at Holy Names,” Lacore said. “Whatever you choose to do and wherever your journey takes you, go all in.”