Indiana Democratic Senate candidate Evan Bayh returned to Washington, D.C., for a fundraiser with one of D.C.’s most powerful lobbyists on Thursday.
Bayh attended a fundraiser hosted by former Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D.) and Andy Barbour of the Smith-Free Group, who was dubbed one of Washington’s "top lobbyists" by the Hill in 2015 and 2014. Donors contributed between $1,000 and $2,700. Neither the Bayh campaign nor the fundraiser’s coordinator returned a request for comment.
A tracking video posted by the NTK Network showed Bayh and a colleague carrying a large suitcase into the Capitol Hill townhouse where the fundraiser took place. Bayh, a former two-term senator, has faced scrutiny for his absence from the state he intends to represents in the Senate. He allowed his Indiana voter registration to expire as he spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., working in the Senate and then as a partner at the lobbying firm McGuire Woods. He purchased a four-bedroom townhouse in Georgetown for nearly $3 million in 2015.
The Indianapolis Star interviewed residents of the Indiana neighborhood that Bayh claims as his home. His neighbors reacted with surprise when they were informed that Bayh lives in the area.
"Evan Bayh lives next door? Are you serious? I never knew that. I didn’t. I’m sorry I’ve been over here for three years. I never knew he lived over here," neighbor Patrice Rogers told the Star’s film crew. "I’ve never seen him. No one ever mentioned it out here. I’m very surprised. I think that’s very concerning—you don’t even make your presence out here."
Another neighbor told the newspaper that he had seen Bayh several times when he first moved into the condominium, but no longer considered him a resident due to his lengthy absence.
"I would not consider him really a resident of this area because I have not seen him around here recently," George Landis said. "He was early on … He probably still has ownership of the condo."
The state Democratic Party told the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month that no one is staffing Bayh’s Indiana campaign office nearly two months after he launched a campaign against Republican Rep. Todd Young.