U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker on Friday announced his support of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.
“With Trump as President, we will secure our borders, keep America strong, unleash American energy, and build an economy that works for all Americans,” Smucker said in a statement. “We’ve done it before, and we can do it again with President Trump.”
Smucker, whose district includes Lancaster County and most of York County, has been a longtime supporter of Trump, even traveling with him to Pennsylvania campaign stops in 2020 during the former president’s failed reelection bid.
In 2021, Smucker voted to decertify the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania that showed Trump had lost to President Joe Biden. He also voted with the majority of Republicans to oppose the second impeachment of Trump for his role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Smucker’s endorsement of Trump came more than six months after the majority of Pennsylvania’s eight GOP representatives backed the former president. In August, Smucker told LNP | LancasterOnline he’d support Trump “if he was the nominee,” but at the time didn’t endorse Trump as a primary candidate.
Smucker announced last month that he will seek a fifth term as representative for Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District, while also pursuing a spot as one of the district’s three delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention to help select the party’s presidential nominee.
Smucker declined to comment Friday about his endorsement announcement.
Trump has not issued a public endorsement of Smucker in 2024, but he backed the congressman’s reelection efforts in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
In his endorsement statement, Smucker also accused Democrats of leveraging the courts to attack Trump’s campaign.
"As voters get ready to head to the ballot box, the Democratic Party has unveiled their newest scheme to keep Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot,” Smucker said. “It is clear that they are willing to weaponize our judicial system and will stop at nothing to prop up the failed Biden presidency.”
Last month, Colorado’s Supreme Court barred Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 ballot. The majority of justices ruled that Trump’s behavior during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots disqualifies him from office under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Trump has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
Maine’s secretary of state also barred Trump from the ballot, and CNN reported this week that voter groups in Illinois and Massachusetts filed motions to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot.
In Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, the state’s chief election official, told CBS News this week that he does not have the power to remove Trump from the ballot. He said in Pennsylvania that power lies exclusively with the courts.
Trump is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024, with most national polls showing him with a substantial lead over Republican primary candidates including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
The greatest obstacle on Trump’s path to the GOP nomination might be the four criminal cases filed against him. Two involve charges that he attempted to tamper with the 2020 election results, a third focuses on his alleged falsification of business records tied to hush money payments through the 2016 election, and the fourth claims he mishandled top-secret documents after his presidency.
