Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) announced during Monday evening’s presidential debate that she’d filed paperwork to run for president.

“I filed today my paperwork to run for president of the United States … I wanted you to be the first to know,” she said.

{mosads}She added she would make a formal announcement at a later time.

Bachmann, the conservative congresswoman with ties to the Tea Party movement, made the announcement during her first answer of the Republican debate in Manchester, N.H.

Bachmann reiterated her announcement in a Web video posted halfway through the debate.

“I worked very hard to bring your voice to the House of Congress,” she said. “Now I want to take your voice into the White House, where it hasn’t been heard for a long time.”

The Minnesota lawmaker had made rumblings suggesting that she would announce during a trip to Iowa, but instead chose to do so in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Bachmann has some campaign infrastructure in place; her chief of staff stepped down earlier this month to take a role with the campaign, and Ed Rollins, a veteran GOP strategist who’d served in the past as a strategist for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), has also signed on to help Bachmann.

Bachmann was expected to announce her 2012 plans sometime this month.

It could be an uphill battle. The latest Gallup poll showed her with only 5 percent support among Republican primary voters, trailing fellow contenders Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum. Sarah Palin also beat her in the poll but hasn’t announced her 2012 plans.

Bachmann has made several trips to Iowa and expected to make a play for a win in the caucuses there.

Updated at 9:06 p.m.