“I think what’s appealing about her to people in Dorchester is her work. I think a lot of people connect to her work in Washington, and also her upbringing. She grew up in a working family and tried to make something of herself,” said State Representative Martin J. Walsh, who represents Dorchester.

Charlestown Democrat Jack Kelly, who organized his neighborhood’s caucus, said that Warren will likely take Charlestown because the presidential election will drive many Democrats to the polls. He added that all but one of the delegates at his caucus will endorse Warren.

The nature of the support Warren has found in the historically blue-collar Democratic neighborhoods concurs with what political experts and analysts have said for months: the race with Brown, like the one two years ago, will be won on the basis of who can best connect with middle and working-class voters.

“Ultimately, in the end, she has to go in that room in Dorchester and convince the people in the room that even though she’s a Harvard professor who’s worked in Washington and made a bunch of money, she understands them, that she cares about them and will fight for them,” Goldman said.

In the 2010 special election, Brown was able to translate his relatability into votes. In South Boston, Charlestown, and parts of Dorchester, Brown drew a significant number of votes from social conservatives and so-called Reagan Democrats—groups that have drifted toward the Republican Party during the past few decades.

This demographic feels as if it has been “completely pushed out of the conversation,” Kelly said. “They don’t like Republicans, but I think they feel like they represent their emotional interests.”

Brown upset Coakley in wards 6 and 7—the heart of Southie—and lost by a slim margin in the historically Democratic Charlestown.

“He does connect to people. I can’t take that away from him,” Walsh said. “But he didn’t grow up in Dorchester. He was on Cosmopolitan as a model. You can identify with the denim jacket but not with Cosmopolitan Magazine.”

“He basically said ‘I’m more like you than she is,’” Goldman said. “‘I get it; she doesn’t.’”

Goldman added that though it will not be easy for Warren to beat out Brown in these crucial wards, her populist message and modest background has resonated well with this segment of the electorate during the first five months of her campaign.

“She is really the first time in a long time you have every element of the Democratic party believing they have something they want to see in a candidate,” said Goldman. “So if you’re educated, if you’re a woman, if you’re a guy who’s living in a three decker, you like her. There’s very little they can attack her on because her career has been based on taking her skill set, turning around, and helping those behind her in the food chain.”

—Staff writer Nicholas P. Fandos can be reached at nicholasfandos@college.harvard.edu.