Does it surprise you that election to the us senate has become tantamount to a lifelong appointment ended only by retirement, death or incarceration? How do we reconcile this with the fact that most people hold the senate in such low esteem. The elected officials have obviously rigged the system via gerrymandering, pandering and in some cases flat out fraud. That's why I say it's a farce.
There is no gerrymandering in Senate races, they are all state-wide races.
It is not surprising that incumbency is such a big deal because 1) name recognition holds off challengers in their own party and 2) people tend to vote for the same party from election to election and 3) people don't move around that much.
Most people hold "the Senate" in low esteem and hold their own Senator in fairly high esteem.