US Sen. Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, held dueling events on Monday in Dorchester and Mattapan. Brown, a Wrentham Republican, swung by Blue Hill Avenue’s Auto Service and Tire and provided coffee and doughnuts. Nearly two miles away and minutes later, Warren, a Cambridge Democrat, launched “Small Businesses for Elizabeth” at Cedar Grove Gardens on Adams Street.

Both events came as three polls showed Warren leading Brown after they had previously shown her trailing Brown in the tight race.

The candidates have frequented Dorchester, with Warren dropping in at Savin Hill’s Harp and Bard to briefly talk to supporters, with a small media horde in tow, and Brown holding a small get-together with supporters at a construction and excavation firm in Fields Corner. He later attended a veterans’ leadership dinner at the IBEW 103 offices around the corner.

Brown and Warren are scheduled to face off in several debates, the first one coming tonight. Warren’s supporters will be holding the first of several debate-watching parties this evening at 6:30 p.m. at the Ledge in Lower Mills. Others will follow at Tavolo (Mon., Oct. 1); Dublin House on Stoughton Street (Wed., Oct. 10); and Savin Bar and Kitchen (Tues., Oct. 30).

In Mattapan this week, Brown seemed dismissive of the polls.

“I’ve said right from the beginning that this race is going to be tight,” Brown said, according to the State House News Service.

Outside of Cedar Grove Gardens, a business that Richard O’Mara opened 32 years ago, several young Republicans displayed an anniversary cake they hoped Warren would cut into. Keying off of her previously stated support for last year’s “Occupy” protest movement, the sheet cake featured a street protest with flames in the background.

A pair of the young GOPers held the cake on one side of the store’s fence while on the other side Warren stuck to her talking points on small businesses and support for the middle class.

A wide-eyed Republican tracker frantically dashed back and forth along the side of the wrought iron fence, holding his camera aloft in an attempt to record the event. “Elizabeth Warren, we have a cake for ya,” one cake-holder yelled as the press conference was breaking up. “Professor!”

Warren eventually headed inside for an interview with Bloomberg TV.

The Republicans and the tracker waited outside one exit. When the car waiting for Warren moved to another, they shuffled over there, joined by several reporters and cameramen. The cat-and-mouse game continued as Warren staffers paced around the Gardens and the young Republicans attempted to figure out which exit Warren would use –Adams Street or Milton Street.

The candidate chose the latter, and Republicans were too slow afoot to catch up and deliver the cake, which carried an anniversary dedication: “To the Matriarch of Mayhem.”

One Republican came over to O’Mara and asked why she didn’t want the cake. “Maybe,” he said, “she’s on a diet.”

Material from State House News Service was used in this report.