The last Democrat (and only popularly elected one) to win a Senate seat in Kansas was George McGill. When a special election was called in 1930 to fill the remaining 2 years of Vice-President Charles Curtis's Senate term, McGill prevailed. He went on to win the full 6-year term in 1932. He lost in the anti-FDR backlash in 1938 to Republican Clyde Reed and attempted 3 more times for a comeback, but was unsuccessful. The closest Senate contest since was in 1974 when freshman Sen. Bob Dole (suffering from the effects of Watergate) was trailing liberal Rep. Bill Roy, an abortionist, but after an aggressive series of tv ads, Dole narrowly prevailed to hold his Senate seat and never had a close race after. Dr. Roy challenged Nancy Kassebaum for the open seat in 1978, but she obliterated him.
Don't 1996. When Dole decided to resign from the Senate to generate media attention for his Presidential run, the RATS bragged about picking his seat up. But the Graves appointee lost the primary and won the general election. KS seems to be adverse to RATS on the federal level.
Now if we could just get rid of Denny Moore.
Your knowlege of electoral history is impressive. But should Selebius win reelection (especially if by a wide margin), she will inevitably be pressured by her party to seek election to the U.S. Senate when Sam Brownback steps down. And she is not a party maverick.
Normally, a sitting Governor is the strongest candidate one find in a race for the U.S. Senate, sometimes even stronger than an incumbent Senator.
So this election is far more important than it initially appears to be (like Ted Strickland's election to Congress in 1992). Conservatives should make it a bigger priority than it currently is.