Ten months before voters go to the polls and decide whether to give U.S. Sen. Scott Brown a full six-year term, Dorchester political activists met with his top challenger, former Obama administration official Elizabeth Warren.

“I’m here now because as I see it this is the crucial moment,” Warren told a crowd of 200 people at Florian Hall on Tuesday evening. “I feel an enormous sense of urgency. We’ve hammered on America’s middle class for basically a generation now. We’ve pushed them with rising costs, with flat incomes, we’ve turned loose a credit industry on America’s middle class to paint bull’s eyes on their backsides. The question now is can we make the changes we need to make to build the America we want to have.”

Warren largely stuck to a stump speech that was heavily peppered with her biography: Her Oklahoma upbringing, her brothers who joined the military and worked in construction, and her first job at age 9 taking care of a neighbor’s baby.

“It was not the Newt Gingrich plan,” she quipped, referring to the Republican presidential candidate’s comments that child labor laws were “stupid” and children could work as school janitors.

In an indication of how politically plugged-in the Florian Hall crowd was – or, at least, how much attention the crowd is paying to the Republican presidential race – a ripple of laughter followed her remark.

Four local groups of activists – Democratic committees for Wards 13, 15, 16, and 17 – hosted the forum. She was introduced by state Rep. Marty Walsh. Also on hand for the forum were state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry and City Councillors Felix Arroyo, Ayanna Pressley, and Frank Baker.

Warren, a Harvard Law professor, offered up some red meat to the friendly crowd, hitting Brown for voting against three jobs bills in the fall.

“I would’ve voted yes on every one of those bills,” she said.

Asked by one audience member about who was funding her campaign, Warren, a frequent Wall Street critic, acknowledged that she has received some money from Wall Street.

“I’m the person Wall Street is trying to keep out of this job,” Warren said, noting that a majority of contributions she has received were $100 or less.

“But everybody knows what they’re getting,” she added of Wall Street.

She also has the support of several unions, which she is “enormously pleased about,” she said.

Warren and Brown have sought to portray themselves as underdogs in the U.S. Senate race, when in fact both are juggernauts: Warren, who has cleared the field of serious challengers to her quest for the Democratic nomination, will have the backing of Democratic political operations in a deep blue state, while Brown, a Republican, has a $10 million war chest, with more expected to pour in.

The audience member who asked the question about campaign funds, Judy Kolligian of Jamaica Plain, called Warren “a very good teacher.”

“Overall, I like her a lot.”

Jim Hunt Jr., chair of the Ward 16 Democratic Committee, said he is impressed by Warren. She earned some “grassroots spurs,” he said. “My sense is she not only teaches, she also learns.”

One activist appeared encouraged by a comment she made when fighting for a consumer protection agency, which Republicans have slammed as extreme. Warren, when she was campaigning for the set-up of the agency, said her first choice was a “strong” one or “no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth on the floor.”

“That’s what we need to hear,” the activist told Warren.