Repeal the 17th Amendment and the Democrats control the senate. They control both houses of the legislature in 23 states. That 46 seats right there. In 11 states the Democrats control one house and the Republicans control the other. Assume they compromise and split the Senate seats between the two parties and that’s still 11 more Democrats in the Senate. Final total is 57 Democrats and 43 Republicans.
Temporarily (as we know most people in the states are conservative minded); that will be remedies in the normal if it happens, electoral process).. It will have the long term-effect of having much more conservative senators!
Think of it as an incentive to pay just as much attention to the State elections as the Federal. Most people don’t even know who their State representatives are, let alone what their politics are.
I will admit, repealing the 17th would be of greater benefit if the Supreme Court hadn’t ruled that all legislative houses must have proportional representation. I suspect there would be more houses in the Republican camp if some were based on geographical representation, not proportional.
The length of the term served is still six years, that would not change. And remember, just one of the consquences the 17th amendment was an almost complete lack of interest in state-wide elections only. Ever seen the vote tallies in state elections when a candidate for U.S. Senator or president wasn’t running? State elections would become much more important and smart candidates would run a platform on not letting as much of their state’s taxpayer money leave the state, allowing more local policies to prevail.