Banks-Linked Poll Puts Engling 38–Bayh 37 — Ballard Calls It Dark-Money Spin

Republican Max Engling, Indiana secretary of state nominee. Photo: Max for Indiana campaign.

Two horse-race numbers hit Indiana’s secretary of state race on Friday. One puts Sen. Jim Banks’s pick a point ahead. The other puts Democrat Beau Bayh six points up. The first comes from Hoosier Leadership for America — the same Banks-associated outfit that cut Engling a $60,000 gift his campaign later returned.

Indiana Capital Chronicle’s Tom Davies reported the figures as early voting opens next week and registration closes Monday. Neither survey is an independent public poll. Both are campaign- and group-aligned snapshots. Voters still get to decide which binder, if either, matches what shows up at the clerk’s office.

Thirty-eight to thirty-seven — and who paid for it

Hoosier Leadership for America surveyed likely voters Sept. 27–30 and found Republican Max Engling at 38%, Bayh at 37%, Libertarian Lauri Shillings at 6%, Lincoln Party candidate Greg Ballard at 5%, and 14% undecided, the Capital Chronicle reported. Cap Chronicle described the group as associated with Banks. Engling was a top Banks staffer before the senator endorsed him in May over incumbent Secretary of State Diego Morales for the GOP nomination.

Bayh’s campaign answered with an earlier internal: a Sept. 1–3 likely-voter poll showing Bayh 42%–Engling 36%, Ballard and Shillings at 5% each, and 12% undecided. Cap Chronicle noted that Bayh’s numbers were taken about three weeks after his statewide TV ads started and before Engling’s mid-September broadcast buy began.

That timing gap is not a footnote. It is the difference between a September snapshot taken while only one side was on the air and a late-September snapshot taken after both were spending.

Ballard’s counterpunch: look at the sponsor

Ballard’s campaign did not treat the 38–37 as neutral science. Cap Chronicle quoted the campaign knocking Hoosier Leadership for America as a dark-money group that gave an improper $60,000 contribution to Engling’s campaign — the same gift Engling’s team said it returned after the summer fight over corporate-limit rules, previously reported by Cap Chronicle in July.

If they think these numbers for Mayor Ballard are accurate, why are they spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to attack him on TV?

— Ballard campaign statement, via Indiana Capital Chronicle

Shillings, for her part, claimed the 6% reading as fuel. Cap Chronicle quoted her arguing that 10% “changes Indiana politics forever” and that 14% undecided still leaves room to clear that bar. Whatever voters think of the Libertarian floor, her quote underlines the same arithmetic everyone is fighting over: a four-candidate field with a double-digit undecided bloc and no independent public horse race yet to settle the argument.

Bo Duke’s John Schneider vs. “the other Beau”

Engling’s camp also pushed a one-minute endorsement video from John Schneider — the “Dukes of Hazzard” actor who billed himself as “the original Bo.” Cap Chronicle reported Schneider, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter from Louisiana, calling Engling “a real conservative, a real Republican with real experience” and needling Bayh by name.

I want you to listen to this Bo, OK? Not the other Beau. I mean, come on, he’s a cute kid, but he’s a cute kid who’s a Democrat running on Republican values and a Republican platform.

— John Schneider, via Indiana Capital Chronicle

Celebrity video does not erase the sponsor question on the HLA numbers. It does show how Engling’s camp is trying to brand Bayh as a soft sell dressed in conservative language — while Bayh’s own September poll still has him ahead.

Four microphones, then early voting

All four candidates — Engling, Bayh, Shillings, and Ballard — are booked for the Indiana Debate Commission’s Oct. 7 SOS debate, from 7–8 p.m. ET, live from WFYI’s Indianapolis studios, per the Commission’s August announcement. Moderator Laura Merrifield Wilson will run the hour; the feed goes to WFYI television, YouTube, and partner stations statewide.

Registration for the Nov. 3 election closes Monday. Early in-person voting starts Tuesday. Prediction Edge’s Kalshi-linked odds as of early October still priced Bayh ahead of Engling in a low-volume market — a soft read, not a substitute for a public poll, and one that moves with traders rather than precincts.

University of Virginia Center for Politics / Sabato’s Crystal Ball has kept the race in toss-up territory. Cap Chronicle’s Friday dump does not change that rating by itself. It does put two competing, interested-party surveys — and a celebrity jab at Bayh — into the same news cycle as the last registration weekend before early vote.

The HLA 38–37 and Bayh’s 42–36 cannot both be the last word. One comes from a Banks-linked sponsor with a returned $60,000 trail. The other comes from Bayh’s own book before Engling’s ads hit. Early voting starts Tuesday. The Oct. 7 debate puts all four names under the same lights. Until an independent public poll lands, those are the numbers Indiana has on paper.

Reporting: Indiana Capital Chronicle (Tom Davies), Oct. 2, 2026; Indiana Debate Commission, Aug. 13, 2026; Prediction Edge / Kalshi SOS market page, early October 2026.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.