As I’ve written recently here at Opportunity Lives, down-ballot Democrats should be performing much, much better against Republicans across the country with Donald Trump at the top of the GOP ticket. But in many key states, Democratic candidates and campaigns have been so spectacularly bad that Republicans are likely to maintain a wide majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and have a fighting chance at maintaining control of the U.S. Senate.
They’ve overstated their chances and overplayed their hands at every turn. And nowhere is that more clear than Indiana.
When U.S. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) announced his retirement, most experts believed that Rep. Todd Young (R-Ind.) would have no trouble holding the seat for Republicans. But in mid-July, Indiana political progeny and former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh announced he’d challenge Young for the seat, hoping to win back what he was forced to vacate after serving as the deciding vote for a deeply unpopular Obamacare.
In the Hoosier State, Bayh is political royalty. His father, Birch Bayh, served nearly two decades in the U.S. Senate and, in addition to mounting an ill-fated presidential bid in 1976, is best known as the only non-Founding Father to amend the U.S. Constitution twice.
So, national Democrats were elated to discover the younger Bayh’s determination to take back the Senate seat that was once his. They figured with his sky-high name ID and political connections, coupled with Trump being a drag at the top of the ticket, Bayh could start picking out the drapes for his luxurious Senate office.
Boy, were they wrong.
Bayh speaks with reporters after announcing his retirement from the U.S. Senate in Feruary, 2010. Bayh declined to run for reelection after voting in favor of the unpopular bank bailout and Obamacare bills. | Photo: AP
Although there is great competition for such a distinction, Bayh is arguably the worst candidate running the worst campaign in a competitive Senate race this cycle. Rep. Patrick Erin Murphy (D-Fla.) will receive his first runner-up trophy in the mail.
In a rather unusual turn of events for Democrats, both the national and local media have absolutely excoriated Bayh. In fact, the coverage of his candidacy has been so negative that it’s impossible to recall Bayh enjoying a single positive day of press.
Since reporters find few reasons to help Republicans or maim Democrats electorally, it’s clear that Bayh’s transgressions and failures have left them no choice but to tell the full truth about him. In doing so, they’re reiterating to voters that he’s a giant phony totally disinterested in living among them and is, instead, keen to rub elbows with the political elite inside the Beltway.
Right out of the gate, Bayh’s non-residency became the foundation of the entire race, a story that has spanned months, despite the Democrat’s emphatic attempts to divert the public’s attention to Donald Trump.
Here’s just a sampling of headlines from local and national outlets about Bayh’s absence from the Hoosier State:
“Bayh didn’t stay overnight in Indiana condo once in 2010”
Associated Press (October 2016)
“Bayh defends Indiana residency”
Politico (August 2016)
“Report says Bayh lists D.C. home as residence”
The Journal Gazette (August 2016)
“Records contradict Bayh’s assertion over staying in Indiana”
CNN (August 2016)
After months of controversy, The Indianapolis Star ran an appropriately titled feature, “Is Evan Bayh an Indiana resident?” In it, they interviewed neighbors who lived near Bayh’s purported home in Indianapolis. Most couldn’t remember ever meeting or seeing him. Even his supporters admitted he wasn’t truly a resident of Indiana.
An analysis of Bayh’s campaign contributions shows that only 40 percent of his donations came from Indiana. Most financial support has come from outside donors or non-Indiana PACs.
Unfortunately for Bayh, his political problems didn’t stop there. Week after week, new stories have emerged painting a pretty sinister picture of the Democratic politician.
His post-Senate life was enriched with a $2 million job with New York private equity firm Apollo Global Management. When he announced his new campaign, he received maximum contributions from 15 of the firm’s employees, as well as large donations with 33 attorneys associated with Apollo’s operations.
This probably explains why Bayh spent the final weeks leading up to his hotly contested election raising money with bankers and industry lobbyists in Washington, D.C. His absence from the campaign trail to fundraise with wealthy special interests was so noticeable, in fact, that CBS mentioned it in a story on his race, marveling that he was away from Indiana so close to the election.
Bayh’s connections to the financial services industry aren’t new. New records indicate that on the day the 2008 bank bailout package passed Congress, Bayh held a secret fundraiser with Wall Street lobbyists in Washington, D.C. He would go on to vote for the bill, despite the fact that he received “15,000 to 1” phone calls from constituents in opposition to the legislation.
Throughout his career in the U.S. Senate, Bayh received hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions from banking lobbyists, while supporting most of their legislative positions in Congress. Politico also reports that there is no evidence Bayh attended or spoke at 60 percent of the banking committee hearings that took place leading up to the financial meltdown in 2008.
And Bayh’s trouble with lobbyists didn’t stop there. The Huffington Post, a left-leaning outlet, reported this week that Bayh’s meetings with lobbyists in his U.S. Senate office weren’t related to official business. His schedule shows that his last year as a Senator was spent meeting with potential employers in the private equity field.
This was a trend for Bayh, who often met with special interest lobbyists in his D.C. office during critical legislative moments. On Monday, CNN’s Manu Raju explained that the Democrat used his Senate office to conduct meetings and phone calls with wealthy donors in the health care industry, including one just a day prior to casting the deciding vote on Obamacare. Government watchdogs insist that this is a violation of Senate rules regarding campaigning using official resources.
Since he was so busy with lobbyists, Bayh missed a lot of his Congressional hearings on critical issues of national interest. In addition to skipping banking committee hearings as the financial meltdown occurred in 2008, Bayh missed 75 percent of all meetings of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
And when he wasn’t meeting with lobbyists and skipping crucial committee hearings, Bayh was using taxpayer dollars to stay at hotels in Indianapolis, a place he promised he was already living. The Democrat promised to reimburse the funds spent but only after a Politico investigation uncovered his wrongdoing.
Bayh’s Repulbican opponent, U.S. Rep. Todd Young (right), has surged to a lead in recent polls amidst revelations that Bayh has spent little to no time in the state since leaving the Senate. | Photo: AP
His high profile lifestyle also includes doing something he’s long decried as a politician: hiding his money in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes. According to a local news report, Bayh invested between $1 million and $5 million in an offshore company, Athene Holding, which is affiliated with his former private equity employer, Apollo Global Management.
Apparently, this has all caught up to Bayh, whose astonishing free fall in the polls has been fodder for national outlets like CNN and Politico, the latter of whom recently published a piece entitled, “The collapse of Evan Bayh.” The Indianapolis Star endorsed his opponent, Republican Todd Young, in a glowing editorial in mid-October.
On Friday, a poll conducted by local Indiana media outlet WTHR shows Bayh trailing Young by five points, 41 percent to 46 percent. When he entered the race, Bayh led by at least seven points in most polls. If Republicans hold the Senate, it will be in part because Young ran a superb campaign and earned voters’ trust while Bayh expected to coast into the seat with minimal effort.
Bayh’s hubris is indicative of a larger Democratic problem this cycle. They’ve had awful candidates, terrible campaigns and delusional forecasts of the political climate. And while Trump might be a drag in a few races, it’s the Democrats’ failures that have prevented them from making the gains they believed they’d earn in 2016.
Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.
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