In an interview after the rally, Warren praised Collins, who was an early supporter in her first race.

Warren joined with a throng of current and former elected officials, candidates, and more than 50 supporters at the Unity Sports and Culture Club, south of Codman Square, where campaign workers and volunteers later fanned out to knock on doors and ask residents to vote in Tuesday’s special election.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly endorsed state Representative Nick Collins in his bid for the First Suffolk state Senate seat at a Dorchester rally Saturday morning, saying her fellow Democrat is “fighting for opportunity for everyone.”


“Nick and I met when I had barely gotten into the race for Senate back in 2011,” she said. “We had a long conversation at a cafe over our values, over the kinds of things that we were in public service for and what we were going to fight for. . . . It is a real pleasure to be here today to support Nick in his race for state Senate.”

Collins sailed through an uncontested Democratic primary on April 3 with 95 percent of the vote. There are no Republicans in the race.

He faces off Tuesday against two independents: Donald Osgood Sr., co-pastor of GateWay Ministries in Dorchester, and perennial candidate Althea Garrison, who represented the Fifth Suffolk District in the House from 1993 to 1995, and ran for office numerous times before that win and since.

They are competing to represent a district that stretches from Mattapan to the Seaport and includes Dorchester and South Boston.

The speakers at Saturday’s rally included former state senator Linda Dorcena Forry, who created the vacancy when she announced in January that she would leave office to become a vice president for diversity and inclusion at Suffolk Construction.


“We’re to support someone who . . . has been doing the work,” Forry said, going on to describe how, in the State House, she and Collins had worked together “on issues that are impacting the whole district,” including housing affordability and economic opportunities for businesses owned by women and people of color.

Collins said in an interview Saturday that Forry had left “big shoes to fill” but he feels ready to be “a voice for 160,000 people” across the district.

“I think . . . my experience, the work that I’ve done in partnership with former senator Forry and my colleagues in the Legislature, has prepared me to do that,” he said.

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.