By Leo Shane III
A veteran will likely be on your election ballot this fall, but maybe not in the race you expected.
The study is the first comprehensive look at veterans’ 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.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.
“I think it’s fair to think that we’ll see an increase in the number of veteran candidates at the federal level in coming years,” said Rebecca Burgess, manager of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship and the report’s author. “For some, state offices are like getting their feet wet.”
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, Massachusetts and Illinois round out the report’s “Bottom Five,” each with single-digit veteran representation in their state legislatures.
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