There are a lot of reasons to believe that former Democratic Congressman Jim Slattery has a real opportunity to make this year's Kansas Senate race a competitive one, aiming to become the first Democrat to win a Senate election in the state since 1932. Now you can add another.

Slattery holds about $600,000 in his campaign treasury, while Roberts is sitting on $3.1 million despite outlays for 17 days of ads.

The latest financial balance sheets reflect Roberts' ability to raise $850,000 in the second quarter of this year, which is significantly more than Slattery's estimate of $500,000.

The $500,000 raised during the second quarter (with a little help from the Road to 60 page) comes on top of the $288,000 Slattery raised during the first 12 days of his campaign in late March.

Most of the reports on these numbers make it seem that they constitute bad news for Slattery and good news for the incumbent Pat Roberts. Indeed, Roberts now sits on more than six times more money in the bank than Slattery. However, Kansas is not an expensive state to campaign in, and even a couple million dollars -- which Slattery should be able to bring in (note that this was only his first full fundraising quarter) -- can saturate the entire state in television ads for the better part of a month. And the latest nonpartisan polling on the race, courtesy of Rasmussen Reports, puts Roberts up by just a single-digit margin -- and under 50 percent to boot -- with the distance between the two candidates shrinking rather than growing.

This isn't going to be the Democrats first or second or even fifth pick-up in the Senate this cycle (if we have one or two or five pick-ups). But it is one of the races that could be key to hitting the magical 60 mark in the Senate. And given the numbers on the race, as well as the general demographics in the state, it's looking like there really is an shot at things coming together for Slattery to become the first Democratic Senator from Kansas in 70 years.