INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's presidential primary is still nearly three months away, but Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh expects it could still help decide the race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Bayh, who endorsed Clinton last fall after he dropped his own presidential bid, said Monday he was not disappointed in her campaign and continued to support her because of her political experience.

After primaries on Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, the next major contests will be in Texas and Ohio on March 4 and Pennsylvania on April 22. An undecided Clinton-Obama race at that point would turn national attention to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6.

"Given the nature of our rules, it's going to be very difficult for either one of these candidates to get a very big lead, which makes it very likely that Indiana will be important," Bayh said.

At stake in the Indiana primary will be 72 pledged delegates to the Democratic convention in August. Twelve or 13 lawmakers or party officials will represent the state as superdelegates and are free to vote as they wish.

Of the 11 superdelegates already named, Bayh and four others have backed Clinton and one is supporting Obama. The five others, including all four Indiana Democrats in the U.S. House, say they are undecided.

Bayh said he believed Clinton had an edge in experience over Obama, whom he called "a very inspirational and capable leader."

"But at this particular moment, I look for the seasoning and the experience, the demonstrated strength and toughness, that I think it's going to take to actually produce the results that people need in their daily lives," Bayh said. "I think that she, by virtue of her life experience, has a little bit more of that."

Bayh was in Indianapolis for a campaign appearance with Andre Carson, who is running in the March 11 special election to succeed his late grandmother, Julia Carson, in Congress.

When asked whether he'd had any conversations with Clinton about becoming her vice presidential running mate, Bayh responded: "I've not had any recent or not recent."

"My strong advice to all the people who are running for the presidential nomination is: let's focus on that and then they can make decisions on running mates and all that other stuff later on," he said.