A veteran will likely be on your election ballot this fall, but maybe not in the race you expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study is the first comprehensive look at veterans\u2019 political involvement on a state level and indicates that despite years of declining veteran representation in Congress, the pipeline of potential candidates for national office may be refilling.<\/span>New research from the American Enterprise Institute found that roughly one in seven lawmakers serving in state legislatures is a veteran, totaling more than 1,000 former military members nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I think it\u2019s fair to think that we\u2019ll see an increase in the number of veteran candidates at the federal level in coming years,” said report author <\/span>Rebecca Burgess, manager of AEI\u2019s Program on American Citizenship and the report’s author. “For some, state offices are like getting their feet wet.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n With 23 percent, New Hampshire has the strongest veteran representation in a state legislature, followed closely by Nevada, Alabama, North Dakota and Tennessee. Utah, where only 5 percent of the state’s elected leaders have military experience, ranks last. California, Minnesota,\u00a0Massachusetts and Illinois round out the report’s\u00a0“Bottom Five,” each with single-digit veteran representation in their state legislatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n