KOKOMO, Ind. — Evan Bayh is the first to acknowledge things have really changed since his last competitive election.

“I think it’s gotten a lot nastier than it used to be, that’s for sure,” the former Democratic senator said recently. “You know, back in the day, candidates at least made some effort to say what they’re for.”

Bayh, 60, is fond of saying that “politics ain’t beanbag” but what he’s endured has been more akin to getting hit by a steady stream of 50-pound sacks of corn.

Republicans have hammered Bayh for how many homes he now owns (four, two in Washington and one in Florida, with just a condominium in Indiana); how many millions he has made since leaving the Senate (more than $6 million in 2015 and 2016 alone); and how many different corporate entities have employed him (at least seven).

All that came before portions of Bayh’s schedule from his last years in the Senate were leaked, showing him spending considerable time meeting with Wall Street and corporate executives who would later employ him. Those blows make Republican candidate Todd Young’s message resonate in his bid to defeat Bayh: “He left us to work for them.”

Evan Bayh’s (D) Indianapolis condo, on the second floor, on Oct. 13, 2016. Bayh says it has long been home. But a copy of his schedule provided to The Associated Press shows he didn’t stay overnight there once during 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy) (Michael Conroy/AP)

Within weeks of his January 2011 retirement Bayh became an adviser to private equity firm in Manhattan and a partner in the Washington office of a global law and lobbying firm, among other corporate ties. That resume isn’t an asset in a populist election cycle when Wall Street has been demonized by everyone from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the Democratic runner-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Republicans may have ripped the bark off Bayh — but they haven’t chopped him down entirely in a race that will help decide whether Democrats regain the Senate majority.

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Bayh, whose last tough race was for governor in 1988, is still standing and he heads into the homestretch at least a 50-50 bet. After a plunging from his lead of nearly 20 points in July, Bayh is statistically tied with Young, according to public and private polling.

And Republicans now confront a cash crunch.

In the Indianapolis media market, home to nearly 50 percent of all voters, Bayh reserved about $1.4 million worth of ads over the last four weeks, while the little-known Young has about $400,000 reserved in that crucial market, according to a Republican breakdown of ad reservations provided to The Washington Post. It’s a disparity similar to other media markets.

Conservative groups have rushed in to help, and according to another Republican tracking media buys, statewide Republican spending on radio and TV will be about $7.4 million compared to $7 million on behalf of Bayh in the final two weeks of the campaign.

Republican Todd Young participates in a debate on Oct. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, pool) (Michael Conroy/AP)

But Bayh’s more than 3-to-1 edge on ad spending goes much farther, because the outside groups pay much higher rates than individual candidates.

If Bayh can win, Democrats will have stolen a seat that Republicans took for granted after Young won the primary and Democrats lacked a strong candidate. It would be a near fatal blow to GOP chances of holding their majority, as two races, Illinois and Wisconsin, have already broken against them. Republicans can only afford to lose three seats to stay in charge if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, and that Midwestern trio of Democratic pickups would force them to sweep almost every one of the remaining competitive seats.

Trump is not a big drag in a state that’s voted for all but one Republican for president in 55 years. Mitt Romney defeated President Obama by 10 points here in 2012, and this fall Hillary Clinton has not invested real resources here to try to defeat Trump.

With no other chance at victory, Bayh’s July entrance into the race and his traditional bipartisan appeal made him a recruiting coup for incoming Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), the incoming Democratic leader. The duo have been friends since they both won their first Senate races in 1998.

The family name gave him the early edge, particularly with Republicans nominating a relative newcomer, Young, 44, who has served in the House less than six years. His father, Birch, first won this Senate seat in 1962 but lost to Dan Quayle, the future vice president, in the 1980 GOP landslide.

A decade after that first difficult governor’s race, Evan Bayh coasted into his father’s old Senate seat.

His next 12 years were marked by an ambition never fulfilled. Twice on the short list for vice presidential nominee, in 2004 and 2008, he never got the nod.

No major legislation from that period bears his name and in early 2010, he stunned the political world with his public proclamation that the Senate was beset by “strident partisanship [and] unyielding ideology”, leading to his retirement. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), whose retirement in 1998 opened the seat for Bayh in the first place, won that race but is now retiring again.

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Coats’s successor will likely be determined by whether the last few undecided voters view the race as a referendum on Bayh’s first 24 years in public service or his six years since.

Young’s pitch is that Bayh transformed from the state’s favorite son, a centrist who broke from his party on key issues, into a supporter of President Obama’s agenda on health care and banking issues, and those positions helped land post-Senate business.

“You name it, Evan Bayh was for it, and then he took the money and ran,” Young said in a recent interview after touring a medical device plant southwest of Indianapolis.

Financial disclosure forms show that Bayh’s wealth grew from a range of about $2 million to $8 million when he left office, to between $13 million and $48 million now.

Bayh’s campaign said that his 2010 meeting schedule with potential employers was “riddled with errors” but declined to specifically reject key elements of the Associated Press reports on the issue.

Young is channeling an anti-Washington fervor, and Bayh’s stump speech includes a populist pitch on issues like trade and the auto bailout meant to empathize with angst among white working-class voters.

The attacks on Bayh’s wealth are particularly acute in Indiana, which has a Midwestern culture that is so parochial that politicians insert “Hoosier” into almost every sentence possible.

Young invoked “Hoosier” 31 times in a 34-minute interview, and Bayh isn’t much different.

“This election is about the people of Indiana and the fact that I’ve always fought for the best interest of Hoosier families and the fact that Congressman Young has consistently voted to hurt Hoosier families,” Bayh said.

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Instead, Bayh wants the race to be about Sheila Haworth, 65, who he met for the first time at the Howard County Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in this town 60 miles north of Indianapolis. Her daughter went to college on the “Evan Bayh 21st Century Scholars Program” in which low-income students receive state funds for higher education if they stay out of trouble, a program the Democrat started as governor.

“He’s a good man. If it hadn’t been for him, I’m sure my daughter would have gone to college but she would probably be $75,000 in debt,” Haworth said.

Bayh laments that voters like Haworth are seeing an average of 70 commercials a week for the Senate race, much of it from outside groups who were empowered by a six-year-old Supreme Court ruling to create a world in which Bayh has never operated.

“It's gotten so unrelentingly negative now, it makes governing hard when it’s all over,” he said.