Evan Bayh

Birch Evans "Evan" Bayh III (born December 26, 1955) is an American politician who served as the 46th governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997 and as a United States senator representing Indiana from 1999 to 2011.

A member of the Democratic Party, he currently serves on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

Bayh is the son of Senator Birch Bayh, Jr. and the grandson of basketball coach Birch E. Bayh.

Birch Evans Bayh III was born on December 26, 1955, in Shirkieville, Indiana, to Marvella Bayh (née Hern; 1933–1979) and Birch E. Bayh Jr. (1928–2019), who was a U.S. Senator from 1963 until 1981, following his electoral defeat by then-Representative and future Vice President Dan Quayle.

Evan Bayh attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and graduated with honors with a B.S. in business administration from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington in 1978.

At Indiana, he became a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity's Indiana Beta chapter.

Bayh received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1981, and in 1982, he was a law clerk for U.S. District Judge James Ellsworth Noland.

He was first elected to public office as the Secretary of State of Indiana in 1986.

He held the position for two years before being elected Governor.

He left his office after completing two terms and briefly took a job lecturing at Indiana University Bloomington.

After a debate over whether he met the state's five-year residency requirement to be on the ballot, Bayh defeated former Kokomo Mayor Steve Daily in the Democratic primary of the 1988 Indiana gubernatorial election.

He went on to defeat the incumbent lieutenant governor (Republican John Mutz) in the general election, becoming the first Democrat to serve as Governor of Indiana in 20 years.

Only 32 years old upon his election and 33 when he took office, Bayh became the youngest governor in the nation at the time.

He was re-elected as governor in 1992, defeating State Attorney General Linley E. Pearson with 63% of the vote.

By the end of his second term, Bayh had an approval rating of nearly 80 percent.

Bayh and his late wife, Susan, had twin sons, Birch Evans IV (Beau) and Nicholas, born in 1995.

Susan Bayh served on corporate boards, including health insurance company Anthem.

She was a law professor.

Susan died from glioblastoma on February 5, 2021.

He was ineligible to seek a third consecutive term in 1996 due to term limits.

When his second term as governor ended in 1997, he accepted a lecturing position at his alma mater, the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington.

From 1997 to 1998, while he was campaigning for U.S. Senate, Bayh was also hired as a partner at Indianapolis law firm Baker & Daniels.

He was elected to Congress as a Senator in 1998 and reelected in 2004.

In 1998, his Baker & Daniels salary was $265,000, according to Senate financial records.

Indiana University paid him an additional $51,000 that year.

Bayh was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998 to the seat that was once held by his father.

He won with 64% of the vote, the largest margin ever recorded for a Democrat in a U.S. Senate race in Indiana, defeating former Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke.

From 2001 to 2005, Bayh served as Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

He is also a member of the Senate Centrist Coalition, helped establish the New Democrat Coalition, and founded the Moderate Dems Working Group.

Bayh also served on the board of directors of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Bayh released an autobiography in 2003 entitled From Father to Son: A Private Life in the Public Eye.

He easily won reelection in 2004, defeating Prof. Marvin Scott, receiving 62% of the vote—in the process, becoming only the fifth Indiana Democrat to be popularly elected to a second term in the Senate.

On February 15, 2010, Bayh unexpectedly announced he would not seek reelection to the Senate in 2010.

After leaving the Senate, he was replaced by his predecessor, Dan Coats, and became a partner with the law and consulting firm McGuireWoods in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, and also became a senior adviser with Apollo Global Management.

He was a part-time contributor for Fox News from March 2011 to July 2016.

In June 2011 he became a messaging adviser for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

On October 27, 2011, it was announced that Berry Plastics Corp. had appointed Bayh to its board of directors.

Following the withdrawal of 2016 Democratic primary winner Baron Hill, Bayh announced that he would be running to take back his old Senate seat from retiring Republican incumbent Dan Coats.

He was defeated by Todd Young in the general election by a 10-point margin (52% to 42%).

On June 15, 2022, President Joe Biden named Bayh to serve as a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.