The birth of Beau Bayh and his twin brother was headline news across Indiana in 1995 as the first children born to a current governor and first lady in more than a century.
That hasn’t inoculated Bayh from political attacks over his Hoosier ties as he runs as the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, with Republicans swiping at his years of voting in Indiana while living elsewhere.
Republican nominee Max Engling, meanwhile, touts “Hoosier roots” in his campaign advertising despite only living in Indiana during his college years and returning after more than a decade in Washington for an unsuccessful 2024 congressional race.
Even Lincoln Party candidate Greg Ballard has been questioned over his short-lived retirement to South Carolina following his time as Indianapolis mayor. Libertarian Lauri Shillings grew up near Lafayette and has lived in the state the majority of her life.
Campaign fights over Indiana connections have had mixed results in the past, but the issue could linger in the expensive race for the office topping this fall’s state election ballot.
Bayh has always considered Indiana home
The 30-year-old Bayh grew up in the Washington, D.C., area while his father was a U.S. senator and didn’t move full time to Indiana until 2024 after service as a Marine Corps officer and graduation from Harvard Law School.
That is when he began a stint as a law clerk for federal appeals court Judge David Hamilton in Bloomington. He now owns a condominium near downtown Indianapolis and works for the five-attorney law firm MacGill PC.
Bayh promotes himself as a seventh-generation Hoosier in TV ads and has a quick retort to doubts about his links to the state.
“I went every year to the State Fair growing up. I went to Colts training camp every summer,” he said in a recent interview with the Capital Chronicle. “I’ve been voting here since I was 18, paying income taxes here for the past eight years. I took my oath of office for the United States Marine Corps at the War Memorial downtown. … So every adult decision that I have made in my life, or many of them, have been about, ‘How do I come back to this place, my home, and involve myself in the community and make my state a better place?’”
Indiana first lady Susan Bayh went into labor on Election Day in 1995, with Beau and Nick being born the following day at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. Photos of then-Gov. Evan Bayh with his wife and newborn sons soon appeared in newscasts and newspapers statewide.
Three years later, Evan Bayh won election to the U.S. Senate and the family moved off to Washington.
The fact that the elder Bayh largely remained in Washington after not seeking a third Senate term in 2010 — while owning a small condominium in Indianapolis as his legal Indiana residence — drew scrutiny during his 2016 comeback bid that he lost to Republican Todd Young.
The Bayh twins were already in high school when their father left the Senate and they graduated in 2014 from the prestigious private St. Albans School in Washington, followed by Harvard University for both of them.
Beau Bayh enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve soon after graduating from Harvard in 2018. He spent time on active duty and rose to the rank of captain — service that he has prominently featured in his campaign advertising.
Bayh began voting in Indiana at age 18 with the 2014 Democratic primary, continuing to do so through his time at Harvard and with the Marines — often by mail but sometimes voting early in person.
Military documents provided by his campaign show Bayh’s “home of record” as his father’s Indianapolis condo, while also listing his father’s Washington house as his mailing address.
Engling says he pushed conservative cause in D.C.
Republican TV ads chide Bayh’s campaign for the office overseeing Indiana’s elections after he voted 15 times “in a state he wasn’t even living in.”
Bayh has countered with ads that knock Engling for profiting from stock trades while “working in Congress.”
Engling, who is on leave from his staff position with U.S. Jim Banks, grew up near Congerville in rural central Illinois and was 19 when he moved in 2006 with his parents and seven siblings to the Hamilton County town of Cicero.
Engling says he worked construction and other jobs to pay his way through college, graduating from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in 2010.
He became inspired by the tea party movement and decided to move to Washington, where he landed a Republican U.S. House intern position the following year.
Engling spent a dozen years working on Capitol Hill, advancing to a top staff position under then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He and his wife Kelcey, who married at a Noblesville church in 2011, lived in northern Virginia during that time when their four children were born.
Fairfax County, Virginia, records show Engling canceled his voter registration there in September 2023 — a couple weeks before McCarthy was ousted as speaker by rebellious Republicans.
That all happened as the Englings were moving to the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers and Max announced in October 2023 his candidacy for central Indiana’s 5th Congressional District seat.
He was among several Republicans entering the race as U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz had said she would not seek reelection. Spartz, however, changed her mind in early 2024 and Engling finished third in the GOP primary with about 10% of the vote.
Engling, who is now 39, told the Capital Chronicle that he recognizes Bayh couldn’t control growing up in the Washington area, but argues that his Indiana life experience is more extensive than Bayh’s.
“I lived here, worked here, went to school here, met my wife here, married my wife here,” Engling said. “As an adult, I made the decision to go serve in Washington for the goals of pressing conservative priorities, which are the same values that we have here in Indiana, and then, as an adult, return home to continue working and serving on behalf of the people here.”
In all, voting records show Engling casting Indiana ballots from when he was 20 in 2007 through November 2010. He resumed Indiana voting with the November 2023 municipal elections.
He is now registered to vote from the rural Cicero home that property records show he and his wife bought in May 2025, two months before they completed the sale of their Falls Church, Virginia, house they had owned since 2018.
Ballard refutes criticism of South Carolina move
Ballard has also faced residency criticism stemming from what he had said in 2021 was his decision to retire to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Ballard, who is now 71, said he and his wife had owned places in Myrtle Beach since soon after he returned from Marine Corps service during the 1991 Persian Gulf war in Kuwait and Iraq.
Ballard grew up in Indianapolis and returned in 2001 after 23 years in the Marines, becoming the Republican mayor of Indianapolis in 2008-2015.
“Within six months, we knew we were coming back,” Ballard told the Capital Chronicle of the Myrtle Beach move. “We knew, but we stayed down there for two years. There was a tax break at the two-year mark for a principal residence, and then after the two-year mark, and maybe a month or so, we were back in town.”
Ballard and his wife now own a home near the Boone County community of Whitestown that they bought in 2023.
Long history of Indiana residency fights
Plenty of residency fights have emerged in Indiana campaigns over the years.
Perhaps most prominently, Republicans challenged Evan Bayh’s eligibility to run for governor in 1988 over whether he met the state Constitution’s five-year residency requirement because of time spent in Washington working for a law firm. (The five-year period doesn’t apply to secretary of state candidates.)
The Indiana Supreme Court unanimously sided with Bayh, who went on to win the first of his two terms as governor.
Sen. Richard Lugar lost the 2012 Republican primary after attacks that included ones over his voter registration being at an Indianapolis home that he and his wife sold in 1997.
Republican Dan Coats won the 2010 U.S. Senate election despite controversy over his ownership of a North Carolina home. Evan Bayh, however, stumbled over defense of his Indianapolis condo address during his unsuccessful 2016 Senate comeback attempt.
Paul Helmke, an Indiana University civics professor and former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, said he believed the 1988 controversy helped Bayh win the governor’s race as it made Republicans appear scared of him.
“It was one of those where they were trying to decapitate him, and it didn’t work, and that only elevated him,” said Helmke, who lost to Bayh in the 1998 Senate election.
Other dynamics, however, played a bigger role in the Senate campaign losses that Bayh and Lugar suffered, he said.
While many voters might dismiss the residency dispute as political games, it could become a factor if this year’s secretary of state’s race has a tight outcome.
“But it’s got just as much prospect of backfiring, especially when both Engling and Bayh have similar sorts of issues,” Helmke said. “It’s kind of like how can one raise it? It’s a ‘don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house’ type thing.”
Timelines for Beau Bayh and Max Engling
BEAU BAYH
November 1995 – Beau and Nick Bayh are born in Indianapolis.
November 1998 – Evan Bayh elected to the U.S. Senate and family soon moves to the Washington, D.C., area.
2014 – Graduates from St. Albans School in Washington, enrolls at Harvard. He begins voting in Indiana with the May 2014 Democratic primary.
2018 – Graduates with bachelor’s degree from Harvard, enlists in the Marine Corps for officer training.
2020-2023 – Enrolls in Harvard Law School, taking leave in 2021-22 for Marine Corps active duty. Honorably discharged from Marine Corps Reserves as a captain in November 2023.
2024 – Graduates Harvard Law School and moves to Indiana, gains state law license and works as law clerk for federal appeals court Judge David Hamilton in Bloomington for a year until August 2025.
Fall 2025 – Moves to Indianapolis, begins working for MacGill law firm and announces secretary of state candidacy on Oct. 6.
MAX ENGLING
1987-2006 – Max Engling is born in 1987 in Milwaukee and his family moves to Illinois when he is 18 months old. His family lives near Congerville, Illinois, through his teenage years.
Spring 2006 – Moves with family to Cicero, Indiana, at age 19 and begins college, working various construction and restaurant jobs. He first votes in the May 2007 Republican municipal primary in Hamilton County.
2010 – Graduates with bachelor’s degree from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
2011 – Moves to Washington, D.C., area and begins working on Republican staff of the U.S. House Committee on House Administration, initially as an intern then in various staff positions until 2019. Registers to vote in Virginia, with Indiana registration canceled.
2019-2023 – Joins staff of Rep. Kevin McCarthy in 2019 and advances to become the office’s director of member services while McCarthy is House speaker in 2023.
Summer 2023 – Moves with family to Fishers, Indiana, where he resumes Indiana voting with the November 2023 municipal election and cancels Virginia registration.
2023-2024 – Announces candidacy for Indiana’s 5th congressional district seat on Oct. 17, 2023, and finishes third in the May 2024 Republican primary. Works for the agricultural company Beck’s in 2024.
2025 – Joins the staff of U.S. Sen. Jim Banks as central Indiana regional director. He and his wife buy a home in rural Cicero and finalize the sale of their Falls Church, Virginia, house.
2026 – Announces secretary of state candidacy on May 20, takes leave of absence from Sen. Banks’ office.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
