'They're counting on Pennsylvania': Smucker says VP nominee Vance will help GOP win Pa.

JAXON WHITE | Staff Writer
Jul 16, 2024
Jul 16, 2024

District 11 RNC Delegates — State Rep. Mike Jones (left), Congressman Lloyd Smucker (center) and Lancaster County GOP chair Kirk Radanovic (right) voted Monday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to nominate Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance for vice president.
Photo courtesy of the Smucker for Congress campaign.

Congressman Lloyd Smucker learned about Saturday’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump when he logged onto his computer to watch the former president’s planned speech in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Smucker, a West Lampeter Township Republican, was scheduled to fly to Milwaukee the next morning for the Republican National Convention, where he and the other GOP delegates from across the county were to formally nominate Trump for president Monday night.

Many Republicans, Smucker said, believe Trump’s survival on Saturday was an act of God.

“People believe that this was divine intervention, and people are going to do everything they can to ensure that he's the next president,” Smucker said Tuesday.

He noted the incident shifted the convention's tone from what he had expected, especially during Trump’s surprise appearance on Monday. “It felt like there was a resolve in the room.”

Smucker joined thousands of other Republicans in the convention hall chanting “U-S-A” when Trump, wearing a bandage over the ear where the would-be assassin’s bullet struck, took the stage with his newly chosen running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, a Yale University-educated lawyer, successful investor and author of “Hillbilly Elegy: a Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”

Smucker said Vance was an “excellent choice” for vice president to pull Pennsylvanian voters to Trump’s camp.

“He grew up in one of these communities where Americans felt forgotten and felt left behind,” Smucker said. “He's going to be speaking to those communities.”

On Tuesday morning, the Pennsylvania delegation met for a breakfast event where House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump spoke.

Smucker said both party leaders emphasized the importance of winning Pennsylvania for Republicans if they hope to retake the White House.

“They’re counting on Pennsylvania,” he said.

Pennsylvania holds 19 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency. The most recent polling, before Saturday’s assassination attempt, showed Trump narrowly leading President Joe Biden.

Trump lost Pennsylvania to Biden four years ago by just 82,000 votes. In 2016, Trump won the state by an even tighter margin of 44,000 votes against that year’s Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Smucker said Trump’s immediate reaction to the attempt on his life – pumping his fist and yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight” – likely swung some undecided voters: “I think what America needed to see is that this man is a fighter. He is willing to fight back no matter what happens.”

‘Bring the temperature down’

Policy platform

The Republican Party last week released the policy platform it plans to highlight in the campaign and to direct how it governs if Trump is returned to the White House. The 16-page document, a fraction of the length of 2016’s platform, covers the party’s stances on a range of issues from national security at the U.S.-Mexico border to advocating for “Universal School Choice.”

Notably missing was any position on the country’s growing national debt, an issue that Congressman Lloyd Smucker has put at the forefront as a member of the House Budget and Ways and Means committees. He said policies that did make the list, like broad tax cuts and energy reform, can help resolve the national debt.

Smucker has voted for a national abortion ban but he said he supports the GOP platform’s position that the issue should be decided by the states.

“We clearly don’t have the votes we need for any kind of (federal) limitations,” he said.

Smucker said politicians in both parties need to tone down their harsh attacks against one another. He then criticized Democrats for the “kind of language” they have used against Trump that “can possibly incite this kind of violence.”

“We understand that we're all Americans,” Smucker said. “We're going to have very different views about what direction to take the country. But we can never allow this kind of violence."

Since Trump’s assassination attempt, the Biden campaign has pulled its political advertising. In a Monday morning interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt, Biden apologized for having said “put Trump in the bullseye” during a private call with donors — a comment that Republicans have criticized in the wake of the shooting.

“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said, according to excerpts of the interview. “I meant focus on him. Focus on what he’s doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.”

Asked if he believes the Republican Party should join Democrats in toning down harsh campaign attacks, Smucker said, “I don't know what Republicans would have said that could have incited violence.”

A reporter noted Trump’s alleged involvement in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol following the 2020 presidential election and asked Smucker how the GOP can act to defuse political divisiveness this year.

“I think everyone should bring the temperature down,” Smucker said. “We should be talking about the issues. We should be talking about who is the best person to lead the country.”