He served as Mayor of El Hatillo Municipality in Caracas, and was the former Special Envoy of the Organization of American States for the Venezuelan migration and refugee crisis.

Smolansky is an SNF Agora Institute fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where he serves as a visiting professor, researcher, and speaker on democracy, migration, and global authoritarianisms.

Smolansky is currently an SNF Agora institute fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where he serves as a visiting professor, researcher, and speaker on democracy, migration, and global authoritarianism.

Subsequently, he became one of the leaders of the student movement that protested the closure of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) to claim the right to freedom of expression which would afterwards win the elections in 2007, in which was rejected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' proposal to reform the Constitution.

[citation needed] On 14 July 2013, primary elections were done inside the Popular Will Party for the office of mayor in El Hatillo, faced David Smolansky against Eduardo Battistini, winning with 514 votes against 350, translated into 59%.

In November, he won the Outstanding Young Political World 2015 award, presented in the city of Kazanawa in Japan for his performance in local management and also for defending Venezuelan freedom.