Bayh had nearly $13 million in campaign cash and was in good shape for the 2010 race.

With a Democratic exit relatively late in the cycle, it will give Coats and Hostettler a better chance at taking the Senate seat than they had yesterday. Democrats will now have to field a new candidate, and Indiana gets added to the list of states where Democrats risk losing seats in 2010, along with Delaware, Nevada, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. Colorado also looks vulnerable. It’s possible that Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who looks quite vulnerable, will follow suit. It’s also reasonable that Sen. Joe Lieberman might decide to caucus with Republicans; if those seats are lost, Democrats would see their Senate majority shrink to a very thin margin after 2010. It is Bayh’s name was among a handful of well-known Democrats prominently mentioned as possible vice presidential candidates in both Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 run for the presidency and President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign for the White House. He was believed to have been on Obama’s final list. Obama settled on then-Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware.