WASHINGTON — Jasmine Crockett sounds like she’s going for it.

The fiery second-term congresswoman told reporters this week she hasn’t officially decided to give up representing a Dallas-area U.S. House district for a shot at the seat held by Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, but she’s leaning toward it.

“This isn’t a race that I was looking for,” Crockett said. “This was a race that came to me.”

Crockett has until the Monday filing deadline to jump into a Democratic Senate primary field that already features former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas and state Rep. James Talarico of Austin.

She has scheduled a “special announcement” for 4:30 p.m. Monday.

Crockett said she recently spoke to Allred and Talarico, sharing with them the results of polling she had commissioned to test her ability to expand the Texas electorate and win statewide.

The Talarico and Allred campaigns declined to comment.

Crockett declined to share specifics about the polling beyond saying it was encouraging.

“The numbers say what I’ve said publicly, they say I can win,” Crockett said.

Crockett has established a reputation as a bare-knuckled rhetorical brawler, regularly calling out President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in her social media posts and news interviews.

She says her willingness to speak plainly and mix it up with political opponents resonates with voters who are looking for authenticity over canned talking points carefully vetted by focus groups.

She has built a devoted following, which has translated into robust fundraising.

If Crockett runs for Senate, Republicans would have plenty of past statements from her to use in attack ads during a statewide general election.

Her choice of words has prompted controversies that brought rebukes even from some allies, including in March when she referred to Gov. Greg Abbot as “governor hot wheels” during a speech in California.

Abbott has used a wheelchair since he was partially paralyzed as a young man in 1984 when a tree fell on him.

Cornyn was upbeat talking to reporters about his reelection prospects this week.

He said he would fare better in a general election than his Republican primary challengers, Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, because they have too much baggage.

On the other side, he suggested Crockett would have a good shot at winning the Democratic primary.

“She’s just, you know, that crazy enough that she could win the Democratic primary,” Cornyn said.

Crockett talked about working with Cornyn on issues such as combating fentanyl poisoning and food insecurity. She said that kind of bipartisan cooperation is making life tough for Cornyn in the Republican primary.

“It is a very difficult landscape for Senator Cornyn right now,” she said. “In order to win his primary, he has to go extremely MAGA, but in order for him to be the candidate that Texans feel comfortable with, he has to be who he’s always been.”

Crockett said she’s been talking to other politicians such as Georgia’s Stacey Abrams about ways to work outside of the party structure. She said former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso built his own system to run statewide and former President Barack Obama built his own apparatus outside the party.

“We’re just now kind of trying to reestablish our Democratic Party within the state, like it’s not really organized and it’s tough to win that way,” Crockett said. “So to me, there has to be another way to kind of win. Like the numbers are great, but how do you make the numbers a reality?”

She acknowledged part of her motivation to run is the recent congressional redistricting that moved her out of the district she currently represents. She also said it’s about having enough Democrats in the Senate to hold Trump accountable.

She said she’s trying to recruit other Democrats to run for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

“Candidates that I believe have their own kind of demographics that really look to them as well as candidates that have already shown that they either can self-fund or that they are strong fundraisers,” Crockett said.

She declined to disclose any specific names of candidates she’s recruiting for those other offices.

O’Rourke had been considering a Senate bid but says it’s unlikely he’ll be on the ballot in 2026.

When he was asked about Crockett at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin last month, he praised her passion and pushed back on questions about her electability in a U.S. Senate race.

“No one gets to talk about electability statewide until a Democrat wins statewide,” O’Rourke said. “Ann Richards … she was the last major statewide position. It was in 1990 and I mean, Jasmine Crockett has Ann Richards energy.”

He said a primary is a great thing because it sharpens candidates who have to debate each other and hone their stump speeches.

He said he wished Democrats had a robust primary process with debates in the last presidential election, which would have helped them defeat Donald Trump.

“We now need to defeat John Cornyn or Ken Paxton,” O’Rourke said. “Maybe it’s Colin Allred, maybe it’s James Talarico, maybe it’s Jasmine Crockett, but let’s let the Democratic electorate decide that, and let’s see what these folks have got.”