Hours before the former El Paso congressman unveiled his presidential bid, Harris announced she was heading to Texas — an unmistakable warning shot at a fellow upstart competing to capture the imagination of Democratic voters…

Harris has already reached out to Congressional Black Caucus members from Texas, including Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, Colin Allred and Marc Veasey, according to a Democrat familiar with the calls.

The aggressive maneuvering is the surest sign yet that for all of O’Rourke’s appeal at home — owing to his tantalizingly close loss to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last fall — Harris isn’t ceding Texas to O’Rourke or his fellow Texan Julián Castro, the former Obama-era Housing and Urban Development secretary from San Antonio. If anything, it’s the opposite: She wants to make clear that she’s willing to go toe-to-toe with O’Rourke, the charismatic Gen-Xer who starts the race with more money and a similar knack for drawing media and exciting audiences.