Possible Record Turnout as Warren Leads Brown for Massachusetts Senate

Voters are turning out "in droves" Tuesday as Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren faces incumbent Sen. Scott Brown in a bitter race for a traditionally Democratic seat representing Massachusetts in the Senate, according to a new poll.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell-Boston Herald poll (pdf) released Sunday shows Warren leading Brown 50.3 percent to 45.8 percent, The Huffington Postreports, although other polls suggest the final county may be closer.

"Lines crawled down hallways of schools, outside firehouses and community centers around Cambridge, Somerville and Braintree just outside of Boston," reports Stephanie McCrummen in The Washington Post.

Warren's election "is of near-totemic importance to progressives across the country, for her dedication to holding Wall Street malefactors to accounts," Huffington Postreports.

Brown's reelection would maintain the Republican hold on the seat held for years by former Sen. Edward Kennedy.

In 2010, Brown surprised Democrats when he beat challenger Martha Coakley in a special election for former Sen. Kennedy's seat, ending the Democrats supermajority in the Senate.

During the current campaign, Brown has largely campaigned as an independent, pointing to his break with the Republicans on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" bill and the Democrats' 2010 jobs bill.

Warren spent Monday channeling former Kennedy's legacy, the Boston Globereports. Kennedy's sons, Edward Jr. and Patrick, said Warren would carry on the Kennedy's fight for the less powerful.