Sarah Elfreth
Sarah Kelly Elfreth is an American politician who is serving as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 3rd congressional district since 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented the 30th district in the Maryland Senate from 2019 to 2025.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Elfreth moved to Maryland to study political science at Towson University and later earn a MPP from Johns Hopkins University. She became involved with Maryland politics while attending Towson, during which she was appointed by Governor Martin O'Malley to be a student member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. After graduating, Elfreth moved to Annapolis, where she successfully ran for the Maryland Senate in 2018, defeating Republican challenger and former state delegate Ron George in the general election. She was reelected in 2022. Her district encompassed the lower half of Anne Arundel County, including the state capital of Annapolis.
Elfreth won the 22-way Democratic primary in the U.S. House of Representatives election in Maryland's 3rd congressional district and then defeated the Republican nominee in the general election. She was sworn in on January 3, 2025.
Early life and career
Early life and education
Elfreth was born and raised in Barrington, New Jersey, where her stepfather worked as a locomotive engineer and her mother worked as a probation officer. Her grandfather served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and later suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. She is of English descent and is a descendant of Jeremiah Elfreth, who was the namesake of Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia.Elfreth graduated from Haddon Heights High School in 2006, and attended Towson University on scholarship, where she served as a resident assistant, submitted a thesis on how having students participate in governing boards can make them more effective, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 2010. In 2012, she earned her Master of Science degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University, where she worked as a research assistant in the Office of Government and Community Affairs from 2010 to 2012. Since 2019, Elfreth has taught as an adjunct professor for Towson University's Honors College.
Early political career
Elfreth became active in politics while attending Towson University, when she became involved with student government and began traveling to Annapolis to lobby the Maryland General Assembly. She also worked as a summer intern for state senator James Rosapepe. In 2009, Maryland governor Martin O'Malley appointed Elfreth to be the student member of the University System Board of Regents. She didn't become involved with electoral politics until her senior year at Towson, after hearing a speech by former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin. She served as a congressional intern for House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer in 2011 before working as a lobbyist for the National Aquarium and Johns Hopkins University. After moving to Annapolis, Elfreth became involved with local politics, becoming a member of the Ward 1 Residents Association and serving on the District 30 Democratic Club, and volunteering for the campaigns of multiple local Democratic officials. Before running for the Maryland Senate, she worked as a senior director for Margrave Strategies, a consulting firm founded by former Howard County Executive Kenneth Ulman.Maryland Senate
In June 2017, Elfreth filed to run for Maryland Senate, seeking to succeed state senator John Astle, who did not seek re-election to run for mayor of Annapolis. During the Democratic primary, she ran on a slate with House Speaker Michael E. Busch, whom she would later cite as her political mentor. Elfreth was elected to the Maryland Senate with 53.8 percent of the vote against former state delegate Ron George.Elfreth was sworn into the Maryland Senate on January 9, 2019. As of 2024, she is the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maryland Senate. Elfreth was a member of the Budget and Taxation Committee—including as the chair of its Pensions and Public Safety, Transportation, and Environment subcommittee and as a member of its Capital Budget subcommittee—and was the chair of the Joint Committee on the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bay Critical Areas and Joint Subcommittee on Program Open Space and Agricultural Land Preservation. She was regarded as one of the most productive members of the legislature, having passed 84 bills during her tenure, more than any other legislator during that time.
Elfreth served as an at-large delegate to the 2020 and 2024 Democratic National Conventions. As of May 2024, she had plans to campaign for Joe Biden in Pennsylvania during the 2024 presidential election.
In 2022, Elfreth served as the chair of the Chesapeake Executive Council. In this position, Elfreth whipped votes from members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly on legislation to commit some coronavirus relief funding to agricultural cleanup programs.
Elfreth resigned from the Maryland Senate on January 2, 2025. Her successor, state delegate Shaneka Henson, was nominated by the Anne Arundel County Democratic Central Committee on January 4, 2025, and appointed to the seat by Governor Wes Moore a few days later. Elfreth remained neutral in the process to pick her successor.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2024
On November 4, 2023, Elfreth announced that she would run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland's 3rd congressional district to succeed John Sarbanes, who had announced his retirement a week before. During the Democratic primary, which developed into a three-way race between Elfreth, Clarence Lam, and Harry Dunn, Elfreth campaigned on environmental issues, abortion rights, and healthcare, and received support from U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, and from several Anne Arundel County-based legislators.Elfreth won the Democratic primary election on May 14, 2024, and defeated Republican nominee Rob Steinberger in the general election on November 5, 2024. She is the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland. She and April McClain Delaney are the first women to represent Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2016, when Donna Edwards retired to unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate.
Tenure
Elfreth was sworn in on January 3, 2025. Before the start of the 119th Congress, Elfreth unsuccessfully ran for freshman class representative for the Democratic Caucus, placing second in a three way race that included California freshman U.S. Representative-elect Luz Rivas and Washington freshman U.S. Representative-elect Emily Randall.Committee assignments
For the 119th Congress:- Committee on Armed Services
- * Subcommittee on Readiness
- * Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces
- Committee on Natural Resources
- * Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
- * Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries
Caucus memberships
- Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues
- Congressional Equality Caucus
- Future Forum
- Labor Caucus
- New Democrat Coalition
Political positions
Crime and policing
During the 2021 legislative session, Elfreth voted for the Maryland Police Accountability Act and supported an unsuccessful Republican amendment to the bill that would require law enforcement agencies to keep a record of positive community feedback.During debate on a bill to give the attorney general of Maryland prosecutorial power in police-involved deaths in 2023, Elfreth voted for amendments that would allow state's attorneys to decide first whether to prosecute a case, and another to appoint a director of the investigations division. Both amendments were rejected in largely party-line votes.
In June 2023, following a shooting in Annapolis that left three dead and another three injured, Elfreth attended a vigil to honor the victims of the attack and endorsed calls for accountability from state legislators.
Education
During her tenure as the student member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, Elfreth voted against a three percent tuition increase and spoke in support of Governor Martin O'Malley's four-year tuition freeze. She also played a role in gathering opposition to a resolution recommending against a policy on pornographic films following the screening of Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge at the University of Maryland, College Park, convincing other board members that there was no way to create such a policy without infringing on freedom of speech.During the 2019 legislative session, Elfreth introduced legislation to expand the Board of Regents' membership and implement additional oversight reforms. The bill passed both chambers unanimously and was signed into law by Governor Hogan on April 30, 2019.
During her 2024 congressional campaign, Elfreth campaigned for school board candidates running against candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty, saying that she viewed the "threat Moms for Liberty poses to our boards of education as one of the greatest threats to democracy." In October 2024, after The Baltimore Banner reported that Anne Arundel County school board candidate Chuck Yocum had a history of child sexual abuse charges stemming from his teaching job at Northeast High School, Elfreth called for Yocum to drop out of the school board race. Yocum was narrowly defeated by Erica McFarland in the general election on November 5, 2024.
In March 2025, was one of 31 Democrats to vote for the DETERRENT Act, which lowers the foreign reporting thresholds for colleges and prohibits universities from working with "countries of concern" without annual approval from the U.S. Secretary of Education.
Electoral and ethics reform
While a student at Towson University, Elfreth testified in support of a bill to increase polling places at college campuses and make it easier for college students to register to vote. During the 2021 legislative session, she introduced the "Student and Military Voter Empowerment Act", which would require higher education institutions to create websites to provide students with voting information and allow military members to register to vote using their Department of Defense Common Access Card. The bill passed and became law without Governor Larry Hogan's signature on May 30, 2021.During the 2021 legislative session, Elfreth introduced legislation to create an "Office of Digital Inclusion" in the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. The bill passed and was signed into law by Governor Hogan on April 13, 2021. She also introduced legislation that would require the state's Commission on Environmental Justice and sustainable Communities to "reflect the racial, gender, ethnic, and geographic diversity of the state". The bill passed and became law on May 30, 2021.
During debate on a bill that would allow the Maryland State Board of Elections to tabulate mail-in ballots before election day in 2022, Elfreth was one of two Democratic state senators to vote for a Republican amendment that would have limited people to picking up and delivering only 10 ballots for other voters.
During her 2024 congressional campaign, Elfreth was the only candidate in the race who expressed openness to accepting campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, saying that she would accept donations from corporations within the district. She said she would support campaign finance reforms if elected to Congress, referencing Sarbanes's For the People Act.