Last night I wrote about the 2010 Kansas Senate race, which may feature popular Governor Kathleen Sebelius as the Democratic nominee. In the post I wrote that "the Democrats have a great chance of winning a Senate election in the state for the first time since 1932 (unless, of course, they are able to knock off Pat Roberts this cycle, which while difficult would not be impossible)" [emphasis added]. Well, the difficult could become slightly less difficult this week.

According to my sources, former Democratic Congressman Jim Slattery is nearing a decision on a potential run against Republican Senator Pat Roberts in Kansas this cycle. Such a decision could come as early as this week.

Last month I did a little write up on Slattery's candidacy that included this brief overview of the environment:

Now I'm not under the delusion that this would be an easy win for Slattery. Sure, unweighted simple averaging shows that Kansas Democrats received about 49.6 percent of the statewide two-party vote for Congress last fall, winning two of four seats in the state. Sure, both Governor Sebelius and Paul Morrison, the Democratic nominee for Attorney General, both received about 58 percent of the vote last fall. But Kansas is a tough nut for any Democrat to crack, particularly in a presidential election.

That said, and I'm going without much knowledge of Slattery (where's my 1994 Almanac of American Politics when I need it...), but it would seem that he could at least give the Democrats a chance to play in Kansas, something they haven't done in a Senate election in the state in a long time. And though Kansas would probably stack up as the Democrats' 12th, 13th or 14th best pick-up opportunity in the Senate, such large swings have been seen in the past (the GOP most recently picked up 12 seats in 1980, the Democrats last picked up 13 seats in 1958).

While a month ago I didn't put Kansas in the top-10 pickup opportunities for the Democrats in 2008 with Slattery in the race, looking back it's possible that such a race could rank as high as 9 or 10 for the Democrats next fall, depending on how things shake out. Either way, it seems likely that the Democrats would have a better shot at picking up this seat with Slattery in than with Slattery not in.

For those interested in learning more about the former Congressman, head over to the Senate 2008 Guru for a very good and informative writeup.