Indiana Democrats hope Beau Bayh leads them from political wilderness

This is the first of four profiles in Indiana’s secretary of state race.

Beau Bayh professes no anxiety about expectations that he lift Indiana Democrats from the political woes they’ve suffered for more than a decade.

That expectation comes for the secretary of state candidate as the son and grandson of the state’s most prominent Democratic figures stretching back some 60 years.

“I don’t feel pressure to win for my political party,” Bayh said while sitting on a bench outside a recent Democratic volunteer rally at a Fishers community center.

“I feel pressure every time I talk to a mom, a young mom, throughout our state, who has had to travel across county lines or across state lines even to give birth in a hospital because of Medicaid cuts paid for by tax cuts for the rich,” he said. “I feel pressure when I talk to kids in the public schools that are not getting the support that they need. … That is the pressure I feel, and that’s a good type of pressure because that’s why I’m doing this, to help people like that.”

Online critics have derided the 30-year-old Bayh as a “nepo baby” and Republican nominee Max Engling labeled him “a prep school kid with a familiar name” for growing up in the Washington area after his father, Evan Bayh, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998.

Others, however, have goodwill for the Bayh family that includes Beau’s grandfather, the late Birch Bayh who served in the U.S. Senate during 1963-81, and Beau’s mother Susan Bayh, who was 61 when she died of brain cancer in 2021.

“I was lucky enough to meet Beau’s mother many years ago, so I’m really hoping for him to be able to win,” said June Levey, a retired medical billing worker who was among about 100 people at a recent Democratic rally in Fishers.

“I’ve had a lot of opportunities”

Evan Bayh was in his seventh year as Indiana governor when Beau — full name Birch Evans Bayh IV — and his twin brother Nick were born the day after Election Day 1995 at an Indianapolis hospital.

From the time Beau Bayh first announced his candidacy last October at Holliday Park in Indianapolis (which has an outdoor classroom named in his mother’s memory), he’s faced questions about benefiting from his political legacy.

“Who would I be if I didn’t make the most of the advantages I’ve been given in my life?” he said at the time. “Look, I’ve had a lot of opportunities given to me and to people who are to receive a lot of blessings, much is expected.” 

Bayh grew up in the Washington area after the family moved there when he was three years old following his father’s U.S. Senate election in 1998.

The family remained in the D.C. area after Evan Bayh’s Senate retirement in 2011, with Beau and Nick graduating from the private St. Albans School in 2014.

Both brothers then went on to Harvard, where Beau majored in government and got sporadic playing time with the varsity lacrosse team.

His next step after 2018 Harvard graduation was to join the Marine Corps, completing officer training before enrolling in Harvard Law School in 2020. He took a leave from law school in 2021-22 for Marine Corps active duty and was honorably discharged from the reserves as a captain in November 2023.

Throughout his Harvard and Marine Corps years, Bayh voted in Indiana elections — mostly by mail — using an Indianapolis condominium owned by his father as his registration address. 

Bayh moved full-time to Indiana after his 2024 Harvard Law School graduation. He gained an Indiana law license and worked as a law clerk for federal appeals court Judge David Hamilton (who previously was the top governor’s office lawyer under Evan Bayh) in Bloomington for a year until August 2025.

He now owns a condominium near downtown Indianapolis and works for the five-attorney law firm MacGill PC.

Bayh’s rise comes with criticism

Republicans dole out criticism of Bayh over his East Coast upbringing and his reliance on big-dollar campaign contributions from donors tied to his father.

Engling also argues Bayh’s resume is thin when compared to his own that’s highlighted by a dozen years in Washington as a GOP congressional staffer.

That was followed by time as a top aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, whose endorsement in May helped propel him to defeating current Secretary of State Diego Morales for the Republican nomination.

“I don’t hold it against Beau for his parents taking him away to Washington. That’s how life works,” Engling told the Capital Chronicle. “But I would say, maybe, come back to Indiana, understand what it means to be a Hoosier, live life here for a little bit. … I think he should take more time to experience that and learn that before he decides to jump into his first real professional job, which would be secretary of state if he gets across the finish line.”

Bayh bristled at such criticism when asked about it during an interview at a bakery near his Indianapolis home.

“I hope Max Engling is not denigrating the service of the Americans that have served in our United States military,” he said. “I was in command of a few hundred Marines. I don’t think Max Engling has ever had that responsibility placed on his shoulders. Being a staffer in Washington, D.C., and a part of the gridlock of our Congress, I don’t think makes you qualified to run for a statewide elected position. Much less so than someone who’s been in command of men and women who raise their right hand to serve our country.”

Bayh also spurns the presumption that he plans to use the  secretary of state’s office as a stepping stone to a higher position — possibly following his father’s career path of winning election in 1986 at age 30 as secretary of state and then successfully running for governor two years later.

Bayh said the office’s role in overseeing statewide election policy gives it a vital role in “our country’s most precious resource, our democratic process.”

“This is too important of a job to be thinking about anything else other than doing it,” he said. “So I’m running for this office to do a good job in this office and that’s that. That’s what Hoosiers deserve.”

Bayh’s TV ads knock Republicans for tolerating what he calls corrupt spending by Morales in the secretary of state’s office and he pushes issues such as seeking to end straight-ticket voting and establish citizen-led ballot initiatives.

But the spots also have him touting topics such as data center regulation and support for tax cuts that are outside the office’s responsibilities.

Candidacy gives Democrats “whole different momentum”

Many Democrats see him as their party’s best hope in years to break a streak that has seen Republicans go 23-0 in statewide elections since 2014 — a streak that includes Evan Bayh’s failed 2016 Senate comeback bid.

Bayh won the party’s nomination in June despite some convention delegates wanting a more progressive candidate they argued would better energize voters. He’s also faced Republican jeers for sometimes not identifying himself as a Democrat in his advertising.

On the day Bayh formally announced his candidacy last October, longtime Democratic Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott said Bayh could revive the party’s prospects in the state where campaigns such as his own for the U.S. Senate in 2022 failed to gain traction.

“He’s got everything going for him — last name, he’s going to be well financed. He’s smart as hell. He’s a veteran,” McDermott said. “If he can’t do well, that is going to be demoralizing for the party.”

Hamilton County Democratic Chair Josh Lowry said after the rally in Fishers that having Bayh heading up the party’s statewide ticket gives “a whole different momentum” for Democrats.

“You have a guy come in that’s a Marine who’s just focused relentlessly on ‘we’re going to crack this corruption up,’ and then you have his name,” Lowry said. “It just feels like he’s the right candidate for the right moment. He’s got the energy, the motivation. I just feel like if you drew a candidate up for this specific year in this cycle, he’s the right guy.”