We’ll have more details on this shortly. But Bayh’s timing seems to have made it all but impossible for Indiana Democrats to hold a primary for his seat. The deadline for petition filings is tomorrow. (The formal ‘filing’ deadline is Friday. But our understanding is that the signatures actually have to be in tomorrow — though we’re trying to get further confirmation on that point.) So that means that prospective candidates need to decide to run and collect all the necessary signatures in about 36 hours. In other words, all but an impossibility. And it’s not even really clear who the potential other candidates are.
To be clear, that does not mean that no Democrat will appear on the ballot in November. It means that the party apparatus will choose a candidate, rather than have one chosen through a primary — if in fact no filings take place in time.
