Evan Bayh’s campaign manager, tasked with convincing Indiana voters Bayh is not a Washington insider, lives in Washington, D.C. and holds a senior position at a prominent D.C. company.
Ever since his surprise campaign announcement this summer, Bayh has been slammed for the fact that he is barely an Indiana resident. He remains a partner at a D.C. lobbying firm, a senior adviser at a New York private equity firm, and his neighbors say they never see him at the one-bedroom condominium he owns in Indianapolis.
It appears that his campaign is being run out of the nation’s capital as well. Paul Tencher, Bayh’s campaign manager, remains a senior vice president at public relations firm MWW, where he is deputy general manager of the D.C. office.
Tencher joined MWW in March 2015 "after nearly a decade of successfully managing Democratic campaigns at all levels across the country," according to a MWW press release.
Tencher has limited ties to Indiana—he was born in Rhode Island and went to school at Seton Hall University, which is located in New Jersey.
Although Tencher’s biography lists campaign work he did in Indiana, it also lists work done in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri, Vermont, and Michigan.
Tencher is currently tasked with managing the firm’s national public affairs practice. Lobbyist disclosure records show that Tencher registered as a foreign lobbyist in August 2015 for work he was doing with MWW on behalf of the Dominican Republic.
Tencher was named campaign manager on July 21, shortly after Bayh announced that he would be attempting a return to the U.S. Senate. He said that he would be taking a leave of absence from MWW to work on Bayh’s Indiana campaign.
Attempts to reach the campaign by phone have been unsuccessful.
The Bayh campaign’s communications director Benjamin Ray did not return a request for comment on whether Tencher is living primarily out of Washington, D.C., or Indiana during the campaign.
Tencher was in Washington, D.C., on Monday to host a closed-door briefing on the race with the campaign’s internal pollster. The briefing was held in the offices of Airlines for America, a D.C. lobbying group.
Though records show that Tencher’s lobbying work has been limited, lobbying is in MWW’s portfolio. The firm takes in millions of dollars from its lobbying shop, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Those associated with Bayh have shown an affinity toward lobbyist work. A Free Beacon analysis found that one in five staffers who worked for Bayh’s Senate office went on to become lobbyists.
Bayh was spotted in Washington, D.C., just last week to attend a fundraiser hosted by a man dubbed one of the city’s "top lobbyists" for two consecutive years.
MWW is owned and operated by Democratic donor Michael Kempner, who is a top fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and hosted a fundraiser for her at his New Jersey home last September.