WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who has clashed with President Trump, is rethinking his political future and considering jumping back into this year’s Senate race, according to two Republicans close to him.

But the Senate campaign of Representative Marsha ­Blackburn, a Tennessee ­Republican, now the front-runner for the GOP nomination, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that anyone who doubts her ability to win a ­general election against the likely Democratic nominee, former governor Phil ­Bredesen, is sexist.

And the Blackburn campaign tauntingly cast the 65-year-old lawmaker’s sudden mulling as a vanity project.

‘‘Anyone who thinks ­Marsha Blackburn can’t win a general election is just a plain sexist pig,’’ Blackburn campaign spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said in an interview.

The two people close to Corker requested anonymity to speak candidly about their conversations with him. Politico reported Monday that Corker is ‘‘listening’’ to those encouraging him to run again.

Washington Post

Blackburn raised $2 million in the final quarter last year and she had more than $4.5 million on hand last month. Her primary rival, Representative Stephen Fincher, Republican from Tennessee, raised about $1.5 million last quarter.

A senior adviser to Corker told a local newspaper Sunday that ‘‘it is true that Senator Corker has been encouraged by people across Tennessee and in the Senate to reconsider his decision, but at this point nothing has changed.’’

The ultimate adjudicator in the tense Tennessee scramble could be the White House, which is eager to protect the GOP’s narrow Senate majority but has become wary of Corker since he began to publicly and harshly criticize the president last year. Vice President Pence’s political action committee has given money to Blackburn, who is known in Washington as a Tea Party favorite.