Pressure mounts on Banks's handpicked secretary of state candidate in toss-up race

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

Republicans have not lost a race for Indiana secretary of state since 1994. With less than six weeks until the Nov. 3 election, U.S. Sen. Jim Banks is finding out what it costs to put his own weight behind the nominee charged with keeping that streak alive.

That nominee is Max Engling, a member of Banks's Senate staff who won the Republican nod in June after Banks abandoned Secretary of State Diego Morales and pledged Engling his "full and total support." Engling now heads into the fall carrying four problems at once: a still-pending complaint over $60,000 from a Banks-associated dark-money group, a $50,000 check from a man who pleaded guilty to federal bribery, a steep cash deficit and a forecast that calls the race a toss-up.

How Banks built the ticket

In March, Banks was backing Morales for reelection and hailing him as a "tireless advocate for Hoosier values." On May 21 he reversed course in a joint statement with Attorney General Todd Rokita, and the replacement was already picked: Engling, at the time a senior adviser and regional director in Banks's Senate office, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

Rokita, pointing to "so many self-inflicted wounds and issues," asked Morales to step aside. Banks kept it simple: "Max Engling is a key member of my team and will make a great Secretary of State." Morales stayed in, insisting the nomination rested "in the hands and only the hands of Republican convention delegates."

Those delegates met in Fort Wayne on June 20 and gave Engling — whose résumé includes roughly five years on the staff of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — a second-ballot win with 867 votes, or 53%. Knox County Clerk David Shelton drew 627; the incumbent managed 134, the Capital Chronicle reported.

Shelton saw it coming. "As of right now, it's looking like the Indiana Republican Party is a party of Jim Banks," he told the Capital Chronicle ahead of the vote.

Two checks

Engling's largest reported contribution arrived June 30, when Hoosier Leadership for America sent $60,000. The group keeps its donors secret, and the Capital Chronicle labels it a dark-money group associated with Banks. Second place went to McCarthy's campaign committee at $50,000, according to the Capital Chronicle.

Shelton took the gift to the Indiana Election Commission on July 24, alleging it broke Indiana's $5,000 yearly cap on corporate giving to statewide candidates. The campaign says the money had gone back on July 14. "We determined its entity type was unclear and thus refunded out of an abundance of caution," spokeswoman Chloe Anagnos told the Capital Chronicle, and the campaign has dismissed the complaint as "baseless on the merits," WFYI reported. The Hoosier Enquirer has seen no report of a commission ruling; the complaint remains an allegation.

That same group put $5.2 million, per AdImpact figures cited by the Capital Chronicle, into spring primary ads against GOP state senators who resisted President Donald Trump's mid-decade redistricting push. Banks celebrated the results as a "big night for MAGA in Indiana," The Associated Press reported.

The second check surfaced Sept. 23, when Max for Indiana disclosed $50,000 from Noblesville developer Michael S. Sherfick on a supplemental large-contribution filing, the Hoosier Enquirer reported. The U.S. Department of Justice says Sherfick pleaded guilty in 2010 in Indianapolis federal court to conspiracy to commit bribery and was sentenced to 14 months in prison; he had sold deputy constable badges and credentials for more than $30,000 in bribes. WIBC has also reported a 2014 plea deal in a separate arson and insurance fraud case, which this publication has not independently confirmed.

Nothing reviewed so far shows Sherfick asked for or was offered anything in return, and this analysis does not allege the donation breaks state law. Whether the campaign will hold on to the check is a question it has not publicly answered.

Outgunned on cash

Bayh closed June with about $2.3 million on hand; Engling had roughly $150,000. Large-contribution filings since July 1 show nearly $450,000 for Bayh and about $200,000 for Engling, the Capital Chronicle reported on Sept. 10 in a story on the state GOP and Gov. Mike Braun's campaign launching a $1 million ad campaign for the nominee. Full reports come due in October.

The University of Virginia's Sabato's Crystal Ball rates the contest a toss-up — one of just two secretary of state races in the country with that label, The Indiana Citizen reported. "Conceivably, any of them could win," the forecaster wrote, meaning Engling, Democrat Beau Bayh and former Republican Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, now on the Lincoln Party line. Libertarian Lauri Shillings rounds out the ballot. Engling's own assessment to the Citizen: he is "in a strong position."

Crossover talk

Bayh has been claiming Republican friends for a while. "I have Republican supporters who have texted me privately or been financially generous to us early on," he said in an October 2025 interview with columnist Brian Howey. State campaign finance records list a $25,000 January contribution from Marc Rowan, Apollo Global Management's CEO and a Republican donor.

No organized Republican-for-Bayh effort has gone public under anyone's name. The nearest thing is an anonymous X account, Republican War Room for Beau Bayh, whose operator says they once led a county GOP organization and would not be identified for fear of the state party's reaction; its pitch is laid out in a separate Hoosier Enquirer article. Neither the author's identity nor their background could be verified.

Morales, no longer on the ballot, this month brushed off Bayh's corruption accusations against his office as "political nonsense," The Indiana Citizen reported.

Banks's name on the line

Banks played the most aggressive hand of any Indiana Republican this spring, first in the redistricting primaries and then at the convention. An Engling win would compound that capital. An Engling loss, in an office the GOP has held for three decades, would belong to the senator who chose his own staffer over a sitting Republican he had endorsed.

Banks's office and the Engling campaign could not be reached for comment. This story will be updated if either responds.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.