Bayh Decides Against Re-election Bid

Update | 2:38 p.m. Senator Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat, said today that he would not seek a third term in Congress, a move that gives Republicans yet another opportunity to pick up a Senate seat and gives Democrats some fresh anxiety about whether they are losing the party’s center.

The decision, which he announced at an afternoon press conference, came as a surprise to Democrats in his state who had already started working on his campaign.

Mr. Bayh, 54, made his decision even after entreaties by President Obama and White House aides, including the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who urged him to run.

In his remarks, Mr. Bayh expressed frustration at what he described as an increasingly polarized atmosphere in Washington that made it impossible to get anything done.

“For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should,” he said. “There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress. Too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem solving.”

And while he complimented his colleagues in the Senate, he said that “the institution is in need of significant reform.”

He cited two recent examples of the Senate not stepping up – the voting down of a bipartisan commission to deal with the federal deficit and the stymied attempt to craft a jobs bill.

Mr. Bayh, a former two-term governor and son of a former senator, has been a popular political figure in Indiana, winning both his Senate terms with more than 60 percent of the vote. In Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Bayh was considered a leading candidate for the role of vice president, which ultimately went to Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.

Yet in what looks like a hard political year for Democrats, Republicans have thought the moderate Mr. Bayh’s hold on his seat could be vulnerable. This month, former Senator Daniel R. Coats, a conservative who served in the Senate for 10 years, began making moves toward making a run for the seat. Several other Republicans have indicated interest in the race as well.

Mr. Bayh’s decision comes one month after two other prominent Democratic senators, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, announced within hours of each other that they would not seek re-election. Each faced potentially challenging campaigns.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director and a former aide to Mr. Bayh, dismissed the suggestions that the senator made his decision not to seek re-election because he was facing a hard race in a challenging political environment.

“Anyone who thinks this was about the political environment or any possible opponent doesn’t know Evan Bayh or Indiana politics,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “I think he would have won pretty comfortably.”

Mr. Bayh had been growing increasingly discontent with the Senate, an associate said, and told some advisers in 2006, when he briefly explored a presidential bid, that he did not know whether he would seek re-election to the Senate. He was seen by some fellow Democrats as someone who was not very active in the chamber on a daily basis. He often popped in for votes and was quickly gone, only occasionally giving floor speeches. He was also known to make time for the school and sports events of his children.

In the past two years, Mr. Bayh has been focused on budget and fiscal issues and frustrated some of his colleagues by balking at the Democratic budget proposals. According to analysis by The Times of Mr. Bayh’s voting history, he has voted with a majority of the Democratic caucus roughly 71 percent of the time during the 111th Congress — the lowest percentage of his career. (He has also been the Senate Democrat least likely to vote with the party this Congress.)

Carl Hulse and Adam Nagourney contributed reporting.