The Bayh family

A father-and-son pair of Indiana figures: a three-term senator and a governor-turned-senator.
Indiana · Senate · Governor
Combined career popular votes
10,060,070
Members on the ballot
2
Combined W–L
7–2
Years on the ballot
1962–2016

Birch Bayh served three terms in the U.S. Senate from Indiana and authored two constitutional amendments. His son Evan Bayh was elected governor of Indiana and then took his father’s old path to the Senate, giving the Bayhs an unusually durable hold on statewide office.

The Bayh family members, ranked by career popular votes
MemberOfficesYearsCareer popular votesRecord
Birch BayhDSenate1962–19803,871,17831
Evan BayhDSenate · Governor1988–20166,188,89241

How this is measured

Combined career popular votes are summed across the 2 family members we track, each counted once across every presidential, U.S. Senate, governor, and U.S. House election in our data. Family membership is hand-curated and verified against primary sources, never matched by surname alone, so unrelated namesakes are never folded in. A vote for a presidential ticket counts for both the president and the vice-presidential candidate, matching how each profile reports its own totals.

Compiled by PolitiFinder · published June 14, 2026 · sources: Data & sources.