I put this together to explore what some of the best political "feeders" to the US senate are. The most recent elected role prior to the 1st senate win counts. 30% shading = 1 senator, 60% shading = both. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best path to a senate seat is through the lower chamber. A majority of senators (51) served in the house before being elected to the senate:
Next up are the 23 who held other statewide offices. Tom Udall isn't here because he won a house seat
after being NM AG:
Next, we have those who came to the senate from local elected offices. They are generally state senators and large-city mayors and most needed a wave or special circumstances to win:
Finally, we have the 11 senators who never held any prior elected office:
There really aren't many geographic patterns to see here. The non-politician senators mostly come from traditionally anti-establishment/activist states on either side of the aisle, but that's about it as far as I can tell.
