We are living in a banner election year. With more contested congressional races than any state in the nation, an 80-year-old incumbent in a dogfight for a sixth term in the Senate, and Pittsburghers leading the gubernatorial polls – not to mention a state capitol that is literally rat-infested – we hope you'll continue to make us your leading spot for up-to-the-minute news and reaction throughout 2010.

Here's some of what we've added:

A new homepage merging the P-G's latest politics stories with Early Returns posts from reporters Timothy McNulty and James O'Toole in Pittsburgh, Daniel Malloy in Washington, and Tom Barnes and Tracie Mauriello in Harrisburg

Political Turf: PA poll aggregations by Pollster, with tabs to mini profiles of all the senate and governor candidates, and a mouse-over map of the state's 19 congressional districts

Yard Sign Blogs: A site where anyone -- readers, pols, government officials, parties – can post their own opinions and news. (Registration is required, so heed your language.)

Party Lines: Links to Democratic and Republican party sites and voter information

Refurbished links to commentary around Pittsburgh, the state and nation. Headlines from Chris Briem's Null Space are currently atop the blogroll, in a space that will revolve among various Pittsburgh bloggers.

We'll be rolling out more in days/weeks to come and no doubt smoothing out some rough edges in the short term. Thanks for reading and don't hesitate to write (in comments or to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) with feedback, criticism or comment.

(PS, the new Early Returns is best viewed in Firefox or Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher.)

Photo: Michael Henninger/PG. Patricia Ayers, 17, of Fenelton, Pa., yells at health care reform supporters as a heated argument erupts before Arlen Specter's town hall meeting on health care reform at the Belmont Complex in Kittanning in August 2009.