Ballard became the first Republican since Steve Goldsmith to lead the Hoosier state’s largest city when he scored an upset victory in 2007 over incumbent Democrat Bart Peterson. This time, Ballard plans to run as an independent for secretary of state.
He will face off against the scandal-plagued incumbent, Republican Diego Morales, and his most likely Democratic challenger, Beau Bayh, possessor of one of the most potent surnames in Indiana politics. The Morales-Bayh tilt already has generated a disproportionate share of attention with both national money and national media focus finding its way toward the contest.
Some of that can be attributed to one of the oddities of Indiana political history.
For some odd reason, at certain moments, this relatively inconsequential statewide office becomes the red-hot center of Indiana politics.
It was that way in 1986, when Beau Bayh’s father, Evan Bayh—himself the son of a former U.S. senator from Indiana—ran against Republican Rob Bowen, the son of former Gov. Otis Bowen. This scuffle between the scions of popular politicians ended with Bayh prevailing. That victory launched Evan Bayh into a career that included two terms as Indiana’s governor and two terms as U.S. senator from the state, along with serious consideration a couple of times for a Democratic vice-presidential nomination.
Four years after Evan Bayh won the secretary of state’s race, his handpicked successor, Joe Hogsett, squared off against Republican Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut. Once again, even though there was a hotly contested race for U.S. Senate, the secretary of state battle soaked up most of the ink and broadcast attention.
Hogsett won that battle of heavyweights jostling in the flyweight division and now is in his third term as mayor of Indianapolis.
This year’s secretary of state scuffle also promises to attract an inordinate amount of attention.
With access to his family’s name and his family’s vast fundraising network, Beau Bayh is the political equivalent of the latest sequel to a series of blockbuster movies. The show is bound to open to great fanfare, but it remains to be seen whether the story is compelling enough to make it another hit.
Morales, on the other hand, is a known quantity, a grasping member of the scandal-a-day club who seems more focused on figuring out ways to use his office to provide him with luxury vehicles and jobs for family members than on serving the public.
Morales’ vulnerability doubtless had some role in encouraging the younger Bayh to make the race in the first place. An easier target for a campaign focused on the virtues of duty and public integrity than a poster boy for seeking political office as a path to personal and family enrichment would be hard to imagine.
But that’s what makes Ballard’s entry into the mix intriguing.
Both he and Beau Bayh are ex-Marines, but Ballard spent more than two decades wearing this nation’s uniform, which makes him the clear winner in the military service primary.
What’s more, Ballard’s message—that he’s running not to be the Republican secretary of state or the Democratic secretary of state, but to be your secretary of state—cuts into Bayh’s post-partisan, good-government-for-its-own sake appeals to independent and non-MAGA Republican voters.
It’s clear that Ballard discerned he might be able to fill the lane once occupied by Richard Lugar and Mitch Daniels Indiana Republicans who now feel like outcasts in their own party.
At the very least, he’ll give disaffected Republicans a way to exit the crazy train without having to completely betray their historic GOP loyalties.
He won’t win, of course.
But he’ll force both Bayh and Morales to focus their messages more. And Ballard may even prompt Indiana Republicans to reconsider whether Diego Morales is a hill upon which they’re willing to die.
Yeah.
Greg Ballard is going to make an already interesting 2026 campaign year even more interesting.
