(Photo: www.settiwarren.com)

Democrat Setti Warren, mayor of the affluent suburb Newton, Massachusetts, has announced a bid for the U.S. Senate. He’s challenging Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who surprised the nation when he won a special election last year to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who’d held the seat for close to 50 years.

The Democratic lawmaker believes that Brown is “an honorable man” but that he’s not been an independent voice in the Senate. In his campaign video, he criticizes Brown for voting against measures that would greatly benefit people who are struggling back home.

“Scott Brown admits that he doesn’t think about his own life when he votes against the very same programs that helped lift him as a troubled teen,” said Warren, who is the first African-American to win a mayoral election in Massachusetts.

Despite making history, he isn’t very well known in the state. A Suffolk University poll conducted in April found that more than 70 percent of voters there have never heard of him.

Warren’s not worried. In his campaign video he recalled how improbable it once seemed that Brown or any Republican would win last year’s Senate race.

“Many of you don’t know me,” he says, “I’m probably about as well known as Scott Brown was two years ago.”