As the legislative session nears its third month on Capitol Hill, the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, whose political arm spent heavily to propel several freshman Democrats to office, is now voicing some early reservations with one new lawmaker who was among the top recipients of its largesse last election cycle.

Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-MD), a former state senator from Maryland, won her seat in Congress after she had clinched the nomination in a crowded primary where her campaign was fueled by more than $4.2 million in outside support from AIPAC’s super PAC, marking one of its largest investments of the 2024 election season.

Days into her first term, however, Elfreth broke with AIPAC in voting against legislation — which passed the House with bipartisan support — that would impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials.

Even as the bill faced opposition from a range of House Democrats, including pro-Israel stalwarts frequently aligned with AIPAC, a spokesperson for the group on Tuesday expressed dissatisfaction with Elfreth’s decision, which carried added significance as the first Middle East policy test for newly elected members of Congress.

“Pro-Israel activists are disappointed by Rep. Elfreth’s vote against the ICC bill and have conveyed to the congresswoman how important this issue is to our community,” Marshall Wittmann, an AIPAC spokesperson, said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “Rep. Elfreth has committed to building a strong pro-Israel voting record, and we are continuing to work with her to ensure this vote was an isolated exception.”

A spokesperson for Elfreth declined to comment, referring JI to a statement clarifying that, while the congresswoman had signed a letter condemning the ICC arrest warrants, she felt the Republican-led bill was not presented with “sufficient consideration of bipartisan input” and called for sanctions that “are far too broad and could alienate and implicate our closest allies.”

Despite such hesitation, other freshmen Democrats with strong pro-Israel records who were backed by AIPAC — including Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO) and George Latimer (D-NY) — voted in favor of the bill, which has since been blocked by Senate Democrats after failing to reach an agreement with Republicans to narrow its scope.

While some Jewish community leaders in Elfreth’s district warned against interpreting the vote as an indication of her approach to pro-Israel legislation, noting it is too early to draw conclusions, the public rebuke from AIPAC suggests that the organization is expecting to show that its championing of Elfreth won’t be for naught as it works to advance its priorities.

The tensions between Elfreth and AIPAC, which hailed the congresswoman as “a strong pro-Israel progressive” after she won her primary, also raise questions about the group’s decision to engage in her race, which had puzzled observers at the time.

Even as AIPAC had insisted that there were “serious anti-Israel candidates” in the race — a reference to the Bernie Sanders-endorsed labor attorney John Morse, who was an outspoken critic of Israel — the final results showed Morse winning just two percent of the vote. And in the process of boosting Elfreth, the group alienated another leading candidate and potential ally, Harry Dunn, a nationally recognized former Capitol Police officer who held equally mainstream views on Israel and the Middle East.

Dunn, who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, continued to maintain his support for Israel even as he turned against AIPAC during the campaign, echoing left-wing accusations that have sought to cast the group’s preferred candidates as beholden to its Republican donors and right-wing interests.

Len Foxwell, a Democratic consultant in Maryland who was not involved in the race, described AIPAC’s choice to engage in the open-seat primary as “highly irregular” — noting that “neither foreign policy nor Israeli or Jewish priorities were ever a major part of” Elfreth’s “legislative profile” while serving as a state lawmaker. 

Now, having invested “in her success, it is in AIPAC’s organizational interest to play the long game and to allow the relationship to continue to evolve in a positive direction,” he said. “But while AIPAC will benefit from playing the long game, they will also understandably be under some pressure to show a return on investment, given the amount of money that was at stake.”

“The trick for AIPAC,” Foxwell told JI, “will be to establish that balance.”

“I don’t think she has really responded to it [a local uptick in anti-Israel activity] very significantly,” Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Jewish community activist in the district, said, “in that the district is so hyper-concerned about some of the other issues, like what the Trump administration will mean for our district in terms of the flooding issues, in terms of the federal workforce issues, that that hasn’t been the top-of-mind issue in the district.”

Manny Houle, a Democratic strategist who served as a progressive outreach director for AIPAC in the Midwest, said the group’s reaction to Elfreth’s vote underscores the challenges of striking that balance as it seeks to build relationships with a new generation of Democrats who will not always vote in accordance with its positions but can be counted on to “stand up for Israel” when there is an “imminent threat” or to approve military aid and supplemental defense support.

“It is better to have more of those and work with them,” Houle told JI. “That’s something AIPAC is going to have to grapple with,” he added, calling the ICC bill “a very small drop in a much larger picture.”

During her campaign, Elfreth, 36, at times struggled to demonstrate a firm grasp of key Middle East issues and did not always hew fully to AIPAC’s positions on Israel’s war in Gaza — telling JI at the time that she was “not a foreign policy expert” and at one point saying she could not confirm whether she would favor placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel.

While she later affirmed that she opposes such conditions, Elfreth drew scrutiny for suggesting at a candidate forum weeks before the primary that she would back Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) efforts to limit Israel aid, which AIPAC called “contrary to American interests.” Her campaign said afterward that Elfreth had misinterpreted a question from the moderator and was only calling for compliance with existing U.S. regulations on aid, rather than added conditions.

Despite confusion on a major issue, Jewish leaders in Elfreth’s district, which includes the state capital of Annapolis, told JI that they have no doubts about her commitment to Israel, which she visited for the first time in July of 2023 on a trip she has described as “life-changing.”

“I also believe that AIPAC’s support in electoral races is not meant to produce lock-step legislators who will do whatever they are told to do,” Craig Axler, the senior rabbi at Temple Isaiah, a Reform synagogue in Howard County, told JI. “That is never the expectation with supporting a candidate who has integrity, as Rep. Elfreth absolutely does.”

“As a strong and active supporter of AIPAC, I am thrilled to call Rep. Sarah Elfreth my new congresswoman,” Craig Axler, the senior rabbi at Temple Isaiah, a Reform synagogue in Howard County, told JI, adding that he has “remained in contact with” her “office leading up to and following her election and her first weeks” as a congresswoman.

With regard to her opposition to the ICC bill, Axler said he believed that Elfreth, who was named last month to serve on the Armed Services Committee, “voted her conscience and that is precisely what I would expect, given that she is an independent and deeply thoughtful individual.”

“I also believe that AIPAC’s support in electoral races is not meant to produce lock-step legislators who will do whatever they are told to do,” he added. “That is never the expectation with supporting a candidate who has integrity, as Rep. Elfreth absolutely does.”

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Jewish community activist in the district, said that Elfreth has been a “vocal and supportive” ally, though she noted that the congresswoman has not been able to forcefully address a recent local uptick in anti-Israel activity — including what she described as “unfortunate signs” and “graffiti with antisemitism” — due to the demands of her initial weeks in office.

“It’s early in her term and there will be many more — and more important than the ICC — issues ahead that are of concern to the Jewish and pro-Israel community,” Ralph Grunewald, a former executive director of the Jewish Federation of Howard County, told JI.

“I don’t think she has really responded to it very significantly,” she told JI, “in that the district is so hyper-concerned about some of the other issues, like what the Trump administration will mean for our district in terms of the flooding issues, in terms of the federal workforce issues, that that hasn’t been the top-of-mind issue in the district.”

As Elfreth settles into office, Ralph Grunewald, a former executive director of the Jewish Federation of Howard County who now lives in Israel, said that he would advise “a wait-and-see posture” toward the congresswoman, “coupled with very close communication and conversations with her and her staff.”

“It’s early in her term and there will be many more — and more important than the ICC — issues ahead that are of concern to the Jewish and pro-Israel community,” he told JI.

Elfreth’s office has not made the congresswoman available for a requested interview with JI about her approach to Middle East policy and other issues.

Meanwhile, as AIPAC prepares to look ahead to the coming election cycle, Dunn, who opposed Elfreth in last year’s primary, is now “strongly considering” mounting a campaign to succeed Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) if the 85-year-old congressman chooses to retire at the end of his current term, according to a Jewish leader who has spoken with Dunn about his plans and asked to remain anonymous to discuss a private conversation.

Dunn, who wrote in a position paper shared with AIPAC during his campaign that Hoyer’s support for Israel had influenced his own views on Middle East policy, called those plans “speculative at best” in a text message to JI on Wednesday. “I haven’t ruled out a run for office in the future,” he added, “but haven’t even begun to remotely consider any specific area or succeeding anyone.”

As for his former primary rival, Dunn said that he did not “have any comment about Sarah except I am wishing her well and think she is off to a good start.”

If Dunn runs for Congress again, his past tensions with AIPAC, which has voiced appreciation for his support for Israel, would not necessarily “preclude” the group “from potentially getting behind him,” the Jewish leader who has spoken with him suggested. 

But Dunn did not respond when asked if he himself would accept such backing.

Additional reporting contributed by JI’s senior national correspondent Gabby Deutch and senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod.