INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Todd Young, a three-term Republican congressman and former Marine Corps intelligence officer, upended an Indiana political dynasty on Tuesday, delivering Evan Bayh the only defeat of his three-decade political career.

“I’m told by many people it’s a big deal, but I’m just looking forward to serving the people of Indiana and serving this country,” Young said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Young’s victory keeps in Republican hands the seat held by retiring Sen. Dan Coats.

Bayh, 60, was strong favorite to capture seat when he unexpectedly entered the race in July with a famous Indiana political name, millions of dollars in his campaign bank account and hopes of helping his party retake the Senate.

But the Democrats’ prized recruit faced a barrage of withering attack ads from Young and his allies that questioned Bayh’s residency in Indiana, his ethics and his lucrative business dealings since leaving the Senate six years ago.

By late October, Bayh’s big early lead in the polls evaporated despite previously enjoying a sky-high approval rating during his two terms as governor and 12 years in the Senate, where his father Birch Bayh also served.

But Bayh’s post-Senate work also left him open to accusations that he had become Washington insider who left Indiana behind to work for a lobbying firm. Bayh did himself no favors when, during a television interview in August, he forgot the address of the Indianapolis condo that is listed on his drivers’ license and voter registration as his home.

The AP reported last month that Bayh spent substantial time in 2010, his last year in the Senate, searching for a private sector job, while voting for or seeking changes to legislation that benefited the corporate and financial world. The AP also reported Bayh’s schedule showed he stayed in hotels rather than his condo during rare visits to the state.

Addressing supporters in Indianapolis Tuesday night, Bayh encouraged civility.

“I ask all of you here this evening as we nurse our disappointments, tomorrow reach out to those who perhaps voted in a different direction because they are not are adversaries,” Bayh said. “In spite of what some people may tell you, we have more in common than what divides us.”

For Rose Lenig, an 82-year-old retired teacher from Rolling Prairie in Northern Indiana, Bayh’s absence from the state was reason enough to vote for Young.

“I felt Bayh was here just to get a Senate seat and I think he left Indiana and he shouldn’t be returning,” Lenig said. “How would he be representing Indiana people when he hasn’t lived here for so long?”

Young, 44, is a Naval Academy graduate who was a Marine Corps intelligence officer and aide to former Sen. Richard Lugar. He received an MBA from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Indiana University. He was an attorney living in Bloomington when he narrowly won a four-way Republican primary and then defeated Democratic Rep. Baron Hill in 2010, riding the Tea Party wave into Congress.

On Tuesday, Young took up the bipartisan mantle Bayh cultivated since his election as Indiana’s Secretary of State in 1986.

“It sounds outright bland, but people here in Indiana want conscientious public servants who have deep convictions, but are prepared to work across the aisle when possible,” he said.

While Young often says he wasn’t raised in a political family, his wife Jenny is a niece of former Republican Vice President Dan Quayle, who rose to prominence by defeating Bayh’s father in Indiana’s 1980 Senate race

Young said many wrote him off after Evan Bayh entered the race, which was one of a half-dozen around the country that Democrats targeted to make gains in the U.S. Senate.

“I’m a competitive person. I like to overcome great challenges,” he said. “People stepped up during what could have been an insurmountable situation in the minds of many people.”

He will now replace retiring Republican Sen. Dan Coats.

“I’m prepared to work with anyone – anyone – who has common sense workable solutions,” Young said. “That’s exactly how I’ll approach the jobs regardless of who occupies the White House.”

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The candidates in Indiana’s contentious races for U.S. Senate and governor are fanning out across the state in a final pitch for votes.

Those two races highlight the Indiana ballot for Tuesday’s election and recent polls have shown voters closely divided on both.

Monday’s campaigning follows several days of multiple stops around the state. Republican Todd Young was starting his day Monday with a visit to an Evansville veterans’ hall, while Democrat Evan Bayh was meeting campaign volunteers in Bloomington.

The candidates for governor are rushing around the state as well. Democrat John Gregg planned Monday stops in Fort Wayne, New Albany and Evansville. Republican Eric Holcomb’s plans include Monday events in Elkhart, West Lafayette and Indianapolis.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Democratic Senate Candidate Evan Bayh is visiting African American churches and then stopping in to visit an early voting line in downtown Indianapolis while Republican candidate Todd Young is preparing for a full day of appearances the day before Tuesday’s election.

Bayh’s communication director, Ben Ray says that Bayh is appearing at all three Eastern Star churches – two in Indianapolis and a third in Fishers – on Sunday before heading to the early voting line at the City-County Building in Indianapolis.

Young’s campaign manager Trevor Foughty says Young has no appearances scheduled for Sunday but has appearances scheduled for Evansville, Terra Haute and Indianapolis on Monday.

Foughty says that Republican U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is scheduled to appear with Young.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Democratic former Sen. Evan Bayh and Republican Rep. Todd Young criticized each other Tuesday in what has become an increasingly bitter campaign for Indiana’s open U.S. Senate seat.

The candidates clashed during what could be their only debate, with Young arguing that Bayh accomplished little during his time as a senator and renewing his assaults on Bayh’s work in Washington, D.C., since leaving the Senate six years ago.

“He’s all talk,” Young said. “He spent our money … stimulus, Obamacare, things that Hoosiers don’t want. That’s the record of a D.C. insider.”

Bayh didn’t use the debate stage to defend his post-Senate work, which has been the subject of millions of dollars in attack ads from outside GOP groups including a group tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the billionaire Koch brothers.

Bayh referred several times to popular programs he supported during his time as Indiana governor from 1989 to 1997. Bayh also countered that he was proud to work with Republican former Sen. Richard Lugar to support the 2008 auto bailout that rescued carmakers General Motors and Chrysler.

“Congressman Young said let ’em go belly up,” Bayh said. “We don’t do that to our fellow Hoosiers.”

The Indiana campaign has become a key national race as Democrats try to capture the seat now held by retiring Republican Sen. Dan Coats and overturn the GOP’s narrow Senate majority.

Young frequently faulted Bayh for voting in favor of President Barack Obama’s health care law, arguing it has raised costs and hurt care in the state.

Young said Bayh abandoned Indiana residents after not seeking re-election in 2010, then collecting millions of dollars from various corporate jobs.

“Now, we can hold you accountable in this election,” Young said pointedly toward Bayh.

Bayh countered that he wants to fix parts of the health care overhaul and not allow insurance companies freedom to cancel policies as before the law was adopted.

Bayh also at least twice said that the Republican push to repeal the health care overhaul would threaten Republican Gov. Mike Pence’s Healthy Indiana Plan, which is Indiana’s expansion of Medicaid under the program. Bayh maintained that would put the insurance coverage for 350,000 Indiana residents at risk.

“This is something that Gov. Pence did that I agree with, that Congressman Young wants to undo,” Bayh said.

Unlike many other Senate campaigns around the country, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump didn’t come up as an issue in the Indiana debate, even though Pence is the GOP vice presidential running mate. Republicans presidential candidates have won Indiana in 11 of the last 12 elections.

Bayh, the Democrats’ prize Senate recruit, entered the race in July with a huge fundraising lead over Young and sky-high name ID from his time as a popular governor and senator.

But he’s been put on the defensive over his post-Senate work for a Washington law firm and private equity fund. Bayh earned nearly $6.3 million since the beginning of 2015, with about a third of the total coming from Apollo Global Management, a self-described alternative investment manager based in New York, according to financial disclosure records.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The Democratic candidate for governor had a few other people with him on the campaign trail Saturday.

Along with Mayor Joe Hogset and Democratic senate candidate Evan Bayh, John Gregg campaign at the Kountry Kitchen.

A recently released Monmouth University poll showed Gregg gaining momentum across the state, leading Republican Eric Holcomb by 12.

Gregg credits those poll numbers to his campaign coming up with solutions for issues across the state.

The last gubernatorial debate is for Oct. 25.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Arizona Sen. John McCain made a campaign stop in Indianapolis Saturday for Todd Young and Eric Holcomb.

The stop was at a veterans round table at the Indiana War Memorial.  They discussed the changes they believe need to happen to help the U.S. regain military power and also how to help veterans here at at home.

Also, joining McCain and the two candidates for seeking statewide office at the event was current Indiana Sen. Dan Coats.

Young, who is running against Evan Bayh, is seeking to replace Coats who announced earlier this year that he was not seeking re-election.

Holcomb is hoping to become Indiana’s next governor as he campaigns against Democrat John Gregg.

Both Holcomb and Young served in the military.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Republicans have targeted Democratic Senate candidate Evan Bayh with tough new ads that accuse him of being a “sellout.”

Monday we learned about how much money Bayh made since he left the Senate six years ago through documents filed with the Senate Ethics Committee. He earned over $6 million since the beginning of 2015.

Senate Republicans also labeled him “Bailout Bayh” in the ad that spells out some of those numbers. It hits the air on Wednesday.

It’s the most negative ad yet in a campaign that has been a rough one ever since Bayh stepped into the race in July.

“After voting for the Wall Street bailout Evan Bayh left the Senate,” says the ad. “Months later he cashed in joining the board of a bank that got billions from Bayh’s bailout.”

In the meantime, Republican Todd Young, who had been on the fence about supporting Donald Trump, told the Washington Post Tuesday that he intends to support the GOP nominee.

It happened as Democratic leaders called on Indiana Republicans to denouce the GOP nominee and that’s been the strategy of Bayh and his allies, to change the subject to Donald Trump.

“This isn’t just about Todd Young,” said State Democratic Chairman John Zody, “although Todd Young has said he’s reconsidering support of Donald Trump. He’s been the worst of all in his equivocation here.”

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) –  Evan Bayh made millions in the six years since he last served in the U.S. Senate. It’s information included in a financial disclosure form just filed by the Democratic candidate.

Republicans are calling it a scandal.

Bayh’s financial disclosure form spells out how he earned $6 million in the last year and nine months.

Most of that money came from a law firm that does lobbying and a Wall Street banking firm.

The form also spells out how Bayh’s net worth increased by at least $11 million and by as much as $40 million or more in the six years since he left the Senate.

An Associated Press report over the weekend said that he spent substantial time in his last year in the Senate meeting with headhunters and potential employers.

The campaign of Republican Todd Young wants to know if there was a conflict of interest.

“Well, appearances matter and the fact is this looks really bad for Evan Bayh,” said campaign spokesman Jay Kenworthy. “It looks like he was trading votes in exchange for future employement and I think Hoosiers, when they see that, they’re going to have a negative response to it.”

“He met with them but they did not get anything from him if they were looking for it,” said Bayh adviser Dan Parker. “He voted against every single one of the folks he met with. He voted against the interests of the folks he ended up going to work for. So, the Young campaign, as I said, is just grasping at straws.”

The Bayh campaign, meantime, is trying to change the subject by pressuring Todd Young to make it clear whether he supports Donald Trump.

Young has never been a big Trump supporter but he did appear at a recent Fort Wayne rally alongside Trump running mate Mike Pence. He has not made it clear whether he will vote for Trump or not.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Evan Bayh was the Democrats’ prize Senate recruit this election cycle, a popular former senator and governor with a huge war chest and sky-high name ID in his home state. Top Democrats heralded his surprise entrance into the race in July with hopes that Republicans would abandon his little-known and underfunded GOP rival, Rep. Todd Young, and give up on Indiana.

Instead, outside GOP groups including the Chamber of Commerce and the billionaire Koch Brothers have poured some $10 million into the race, eroding Bayh’s fund-raising advantage and closing his lead over Young to low- or mid-single digits. With Republicans determined to retain their narrow majority in the Senate, they have brought big-name surrogates like former President George W. Bush and House Speaker Paul Ryan into the state. They have succeeded in putting Bayh on the defensive, in the process turning the race into one of the hardest fought contests in this year’s heated struggle for control of the U.S. Senate and the balance of power in Washington, D.C.

“I’m not a lobbyist,” Bayh was forced to insist in an ad responding to a barrage of attacks on his work in Washington, D.C., since leaving the Senate six years ago. And with Bayh dropping fast in the polls, outside Democratic groups are belatedly coming to his aid, with the Senate Majority PAC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee both announcing spending on his behalf in recent days, a move some Democrats once hoped would not be necessary.

“Clearly our message is resonating with Hoosiers – and over a very short time period,” Young said at a recent news conference before former President Bush headlined an Indianapolis fundraiser on his behalf.

“This race for United State Senate here in Indiana could dictate control of the U.S. Senate and even composition of the Supreme Court moving forward,” Young added. “It is essential that Republicans hold on to this seat in what is otherwise a Republican state.”

Democrats concede that their initial strategy of scaring off the GOP with a shock-and-awe entry from Bayh didn’t pan out. But they insist they still have a path to victory, even if some privately question whether the 60-year-old Bayh is up for a tougher fight than he envisioned when Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York urged him into the race.

Bayh himself, appearing over the weekend at a Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner Banquet in Muncie, dismissed the attacks coming his way. “These are the acts of desperate people who don’t stand for a doggone thing,” Bayh said. “They know the only way they can try and win this election is not on the basis of their ideas or what they’re going to do for you or the good people of Delaware County because they’ve got no ideas for the people of Delaware County.”

The race in Indiana is practically the only competitive Senate contest being fought this year in a red state, where Donald Trump is all but certain to triumph easily over Democrat Hillary Clinton, who herself played a role in encouraging Bayh to run. Both sides agree that Indiana’s GOP tilt helps Young, although Democrats contend that Bayh’s strong reputation and high name ID counteract it. Young remains little known, but Republicans have succeeded in driving down Bayh’s numbers with ads tying him to Clinton and criticizing his support for President Barack Obama’s health care law, which is unpopular in the state. Incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Coats is retiring.

Democrats insist they can still win in Indiana, but the changing landscape here comes amid a shifting Senate map nationally that’s looking more favorable for the GOP. Republicans now have a 54-46 advantage in the Senate, meaning Democrats need to pick up five seats to win control, or four if Clinton wins the White House since the vice president casts tie-breaking votes. Democrats appear to be losing confidence in battleground Ohio and Florida but pushing into North Carolina and Missouri, while New Hampshire and Pennsylvania remain closely fought. Republicans have all but abandoned GOP incumbents in Illinois and Wisconsin, but are focused on picking up a seat in Nevada, where Minority Leader Harry Reid is retiring.

In the latest development in Indiana, the National Rifle Association announced it is coming into the state with a $500,000 buy to attack Bayh’s “anti-gun record.”

Despite the influx of outside spending, Indiana University public affairs professor Paul Helmke says the race is still Bayh’s to lose.

“Evan Bayh came with a major lead in money, which meant there was going to be a lot of outside money coming in,” said Helmke, a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who ran for U.S. Senate in 1998 but lost to Bayh. “If they were thinking this was a laydown, then that was a mistake on their part. Bayh’s going to have to work this one really hard to win.”

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Republican Senate candidates around the country, from Wisconsin to Florida, are bracing for Donald Trump to lose their states, and they’re looking for ways to win in spite of him.

In Indiana, GOP Senate nominee Todd Young is facing a completely different, but arguably even more frustrating challenge.

His opponent, former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, shocked Young and pretty much everyone else when he got into the race less than two months ago at the urging of Senate Democratic leaders. Bayh announced he’d changed his mind after retiring from Congress in a well-publicized burst of frustration six years ago, and wanted his old job back.

Since then, Bayh has barely talked about Trump, who’s expected to win Indiana. But then Bayh barely talks about Young either, or really much about politics at all.

Instead Bayh, a youthful 60, is trying to cruise to victory on the strength of his own popularity from his years as Indiana’s governor in the 1990s, and his family’s long history in the state, where his father, Birch Bayh, also was a senator.

Evan Bayh avoids much contact with the media and instead pops up around the state almost unannounced to regale appreciative voters with anecdotes. About the time as a kid when Harry Truman walked him to the bathroom. About the white socks his father wore with a suit. About his 20-year-old twin sons’ enormous appetites. About how he went to the new Jason Bourne movie (“which I’m not sure I’d advise”), only to be given, to his dismay, a senior ticket.

He started the campaign with a massive lead in fundraising and polls, and his strategy is plainly to run out the clock on the election before either advantage disappears.

The strategy exasperates Republicans, who have reams of opposition research about Bayh, much of it focused on the fact that he spent the past six years of his life living in multimillion-dollar residences not in Indiana. But the GOP may not have enough time to turn voters’ views before the Nov. 8 election.

“He’s running a campaign based on his dad’s name, which is pretty sad,” said Young, 44, a hard-working third-term congressman and former Marine who’s not well-known outside his southern Indiana district. “Evan Bayh represents the old way of politics, the old way of doing things, and this is a change election. And I represent change.”

Young was the easy favorite to win the seat after beating a tea party opponent in the May primary, but that was before Bayh got into the race. Since then, Republicans argue that they’ve given Bayh a tougher contest than he bargained for after not being on the ballot in 12 years.

Bayh acknowledges the campaigning seems rougher than before, but insists he doesn’t regret getting back in.

“It’s a lot nastier than I remember,” Bayh said recently outside an Indianapolis senior center where many residents had personal stories to share about him. One remembered Bayh being born; another said Bayh officiated at her daughter’s wedding.

“I’m doing this because I want to make a difference to the people of my state,” Bayh said. “If I’ve got to put up with some of the nasty politics, well, then so be it.”

Putting Indiana in their likely win column was a major coup for Democrats in this year’s costly fight for Senate control. Republicans command a slim 54-46 majority, and Democrats need to pick up four seats to take back power if they hang onto the White House. The electoral map greatly favors Democrats this year, and Republicans are on defense on unfavorable terrain in a half-dozen states, including Illinois and Wisconsin, where Democrats lead in the polls.

The Wisconsin race also features a former senator trying to make a comeback, although Democrat Russ Feingold lost to the man he is now trying to replace, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson.

Intense struggles are underway in Nevada, where Minority Leader Harry Reid’s retirement gave Republicans their one pickup opportunity, and in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Florida, where incumbent GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is seen as having an edge over Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy.

Democratic hopes have faded in Ohio, where Sen. Rob Portman has run a strong campaign against former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. But Democrats are holding out hope for North Carolina, Missouri and Arizona, where GOP Sen. John McCain is seeking a sixth term.

Republicans acknowledge that in many of these states the outcome will depend on how Trump performs. If he manages to win or loses to Hillary Clinton only narrowly, Republicans could limit their losses or even potentially hang onto their majority. But if Trump ends up losing big, the marginal states could all fall to Democrats.

In many states, Republicans are working diligently to find Clinton voters who will also vote for a Republican for Senate.

In Indiana, by contrast, Young is trying to tie Bayh to Clinton, who is quite unpopular. Bayh says Clinton has “always been trustworthy in my dealings with her,” and there’s little evidence Young’s strategy has worked so far in a state where Trump supporters who also plan to back Bayh are not hard to find.

“I’m voting for Trump. … Usually I vote straight Republican,” Sherrie Elliott, 56, an Indianapolis paralegal, said on a recent afternoon in Monument Circle downtown. But she’s also considering casting her ballot for Bayh. “He always seemed nice and honest when he was our governor.”