Smucker was a member of the West Lampeter Township Planning Commission for four years before serving two terms as a township supervisor. In 2008, after 23-year incumbent Gib Armstrong decided to retire, Smucker entered the four-way Republican primary to succeed him, receiving 47% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated his Democratic opponent, Lancaster City Council member José E. Urdaneta, by a margin of 57%-43%.
U.S. Congress
On November 8, 2016, Smucker defeated Christina Hartman with 53 percent of the vote in the race to replace the retiring Joe Pitts in Congress. He was sworn in to represent Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District on January 3, 2017. A new congressional map imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court renumbered Smucker's district as the 11th District. It picked up the sliver of Lancaster County that had previously been in the 7th District, while losing its shares of Chester and Berks counties. To make up for the loss in population, it was shifted to the west, absorbing most of the more rural eastern portion of York County. The old 16th had historically been one of the most Republican districts in Pennsylvania, but the Democratic trend in the areas of the district closer to Philadelphia had resulted in close races at the presidential level. John McCain only carried the old 16th with 51 percent of the vote in 2008, while Mitt Romney won it with 52 percent in 2012 and Donald Trump won it with 51 percent in 2016. According to Nate Cohn of The New York Times, these trends theoretically left Smucker vulnerable in a Democratic wave. In contrast, the new 11th is significantly more rural and Republican than its predecessor. Had it existed in 2016, Trump would have won it with over 60 percent of the vote, which would have been his fifth-best showing in the state. According to Cohn, the Republican-controlled state legislature had placed the more Democratic areas of Chester and Berks counties into the 16th in order to protect Republican incumbents in neighboring districts. As Cohn put it, the loss of those areas and the addition of part of York County had the effect of making what was already a "naturally Republican" district even more so. As expected, Smucker won a second term handily, defeating Democratic challenger Jess King with 59 percent of the vote.
Political positions
As of January 2018, Smucker had voted with his party in 95.4% of votes in the 115th United States Congress and voted in line with President Trump's position in 98.3% of votes. Smucker supported the American Health Care Act, the GOP's legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. On September 24, 2014, Smucker voted against Pennsylvania senate bill SB1182 which would legalize medical cannabis in Pennsylvania. Smucker voted to repeal provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. He has voted for increases in military spending. He supported legislation to punish sanctuary cities. In 2017, Smucker voted for a budget that proposed cutting Medicare by $537 billion, and giving seniors the opportunity to enroll in private plans in competition with Medicare. Smucker is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership and the Republican Study Committee.
, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States, "researched presidential and congressional candidates' public records to determine candidates' likely responses on certain key issues." According to Vote Smart's 2016 analysis, Smucker generally supports pro-life legislation, opposes an income tax increase, opposes federal spending and supports lowering taxes as a means of promoting economic growth, opposes requiring states to adopt federal education standards, opposes the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, opposes gun-control legislation, supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, supports requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship, opposes same-sex marriage, supports increased American intervention in Iraq and Syria beyond air support, and supports allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts.
