If the 17th amendment had never happened the Senate would be Republican and more conservative. FACT.
It might be more Republican at present, but how’d you like a Senate full of country clubber big gubmint accommodationists ? That’s what you’d have. Ted Cruz ? Nope. Kentucky would’ve been sending Democrats, because the KY House is still majority Democrat. No Rand Paul but those typical Southern-fried “fake” Conservative Democrats of the Manchin (or worse) vintage... if not Robert Byrd.
Of course, you being a Virginian, I can understand your frustration having a GOP legislature with two execrable urban leftist Democrat Senators and that the 17th would stop that dead in its tracks. Problem is, again, you’d have John Warner types or more like my 2 Senators in TN, the epitome of the party establishment (and those two would be easily elected by the state legislature, no question, though we would not have had a GOP Senator elected from the 1870s until 2009 with the 17th repeal — and you guys wouldn’t have had them from the Readjuster period until the ‘90s).
Nope. Saying it's a FACT doesn't it one (another anti-17th amendment conservative told me it was a "FACT" the Senate would have never passed Obamacare if there was no 17th, and that certainly wasn't a fact since the majority of state legislatures in America were Democrat at the time Obamacare was being considered by the Senate, and they would have thus appointed socialist Obama flunkies)
If you're talking about the overall Senate makeup since 1913, it definitely wouldn't be a "FACT" since Democrats had firm control of a majority of state legislatures at numerous times since 1913.
If you're talking about this exact moment, yes, there would be more Republicans in the Senate at present than there are under the popular vote method. But it is not a fact they'd be more conservative. The GOP establishment party bosses in most states are warily of "tea party types" they can't "control", and the vast majority of appointed Senators chosen by state government has been mostly low-key, don't-rock-the-boat party hacks and yes-men. I believe the most likely scenario is most of the appointed Republican Senators would be less conservative than their elected counterparts.