[2] At different times, Smith ran for office (unsuccessfully or successfully) on the Socialist, Greenback, Democratic and Union Labor tickets.

In the 1877 election, Smith was elected to the State Assembly from Milwaukee County's Sixth District (sixth and thirteenth wards of Milwaukee) as a Socialist, with 618 votes to 381 for Democrat Charles Fashel and 381 for Greenback Jacob Olberman.

[4] He served only one term, being defeated in the 1878 election, in which he ran on the Greenback ticket, but received only 253 votes, to 488 for Democrat Alonzo H. Richards and 716 for Republican Christopher Raesser.

[7] In 1886, Smith was elected as a Union Labor Party candidate to the Fiftieth Congress (March 4, 1887 – March 3, 1889), with 13,355 votes to 9645 for Republican Thomas H. Brown (Republican incumbent Isaac Van Schaick was not a candidate for re-election), 8233 for Democrat John Black (former mayor of Milwaukee) and 187 for Prohibitionist Z. C.

In 1888, Republican former incumbent Van Schaick defeated Smith for election to the Fifty-first Congress, receiving 22,212 votes to 20,685 for Smith (running on the Democratic and Labor tickets), 527 for Socialist John Schuler and 302 for Prohibitionist George Heckendorn.