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VP Mike Pence raises funds for Smucker at airport on Wednesday

By Sam Janesch on October 24, 2018

Vice President Mike Pence will campaign in Lancaster County on Wednesday to throw his support behind U.S. Reps. Lloyd Smucker and Scott Perry with two weeks before the midterm elections on Nov. 6.

Pence was set to speak at about 2 p.m. on Oct. 24 at Lancaster Airport in Manheim Township, according to an online event registration page.
For the price of $2,700, some supporters will also get a photo with the vice president during a private fundraiser before the public event, according to a fundraising invitation obtained by LNP.
The high-profile visit comes as Smucker faces an aggressive Democratic challenger while seeking a second term representing the historically Republican Lancaster-based congressional seat.
In the newly redrawn 11th Congressional District, Democrat Jess King has built an extensive field operation and had an unprecedented $429,000 cash advantage over the GOP incumbent earlier this month.

Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence speaks during a town hall at the Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center on Tuesday.

Pence’s visit is part of a multi-stop tour in Central Pennsylvania. He will stump for 8th district Republican nominee John Chrin in Forty Fort, Luzerne County, at noon before traveling to the events with Smucker and Perry, who is seeking re-election in the Harrisburg-based 10th district. The fundraiser at 1:30 p.m. will benefit the campaign coffers of both Smucker and Perry, who each raised significantly less than their Democratic challengers over the summer, according to new campaign finance reports. But while Smucker faces a much better-funded challenger, Perry held his own slight cash-on-hand advantage as of Sept. 30, the Federal Election Commission reports show.

It will be Pence’s first return to Lancaster County since the 2016 presidential campaign, when he held a town hall-style event in August at the Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center. A few months later he also stopped in Lititz on the way to a rally in Grantville, Dauphin County.

“How about just give it up for how beautiful Lancaster is?” Pence said at the August event. “I grew up in the cornfields in my backyard. I know how sturdy, how important the family farm is to the vitality and the character of this nation.”

Pence has not campaigned here since, though he is on record supporting the West Lampeter Township Republican.

He called Smucker “a great, great champion of this administration” during a July event in Philadelphia that they both participated in to promote the Republican-led tax cuts.
The vice president also said Smucker had “stood with this administration and with the American people to cut taxes and lift the burden of big government.”

The 11th Congressional District contains all of Lancaster County and southern York County.

Sam Janesch is a political reporter for LNP. He can be reached at SJanesch@lnpnews.com, or 717-481-6024.

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