GEOFF BENNETT: Democrats are favored to retake the House in November, but the size of their potential majority could hinge on a handful of competitive races.

Four are in Pennsylvania, where President Trump and Republicans made significant gains in 2024.

Now Democrats are betting that the president's low approval rating and frustration over high prices will shift the political landscape.

Lisa Desjardins traveled to two of those districts and has our report.

LISA DESJARDINS: It is rainy, cold, and gray.

In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Mike McMaster shows us how his dream of owning a home is also overcast.

MIKE MCMASTER, Bob Brooks Supporter: Now, for me, if I could even get my hands on one of these little houses, that'd be cool.

Good enough.

LISA DESJARDINS: The affordable housing shortage here is not new, but recently has spiked as prices soar.

MIKE MCMASTER: Just pushing them out because they can't afford to keep up with the taxes and the mortgage and all that.

LISA DESJARDINS: There's, like, nothing left for you.

MIKE MCMASTER: There's nothing, no, nothing at all.

LISA DESJARDINS: McMaster is a UPS driver and proud Teamsters member, which he credits with his $30-an-hour job.

But even so, he's been living paycheck to paycheck.

Last month, the Allentown-Bethlehem area was listed as one of the nation's worst 25 cities for housing affordability.

But it is politically powerful, a corner of the state with two key congressional races, Pennsylvania 8, where freshman Republican Rob Bresnahan is in a toss-up race with Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, and Pennsylvania 7, where Republican Congressman Ryan Mackenzie faces former firefighter Bob Brooks.

MIKE MCMASTER: Basically, this room right here is kind of like our war room.

LISA DESJARDINS: Mike is all in for Brooks.

Not his first campaign for a Democrat, but he says something's different this time.

MIKE MCMASTER: It seems to me like the people are more vigilant and more aware of what's going on, in my personal opinion.

The last time around, we would knock on Trump supporters' doors,they didn't want to hear from us.

Now they actually do want to hear from us.

LISA DESJARDINS: Bob Brooks stresses his working class background as a union president and foster parent.

BOB BROOKS (D), Pennsylvania Congressional Candidate: In 20 years of fighting fires, I've never seen a dumpster fire like Washington.

LISA DESJARDINS: Hoping it will help earn votes from fellow blue-collar workers.

It is earning their help.

Dozens of union members bussed in from Philadelphia and New Jersey to canvass for him on a Monday morning.

Tangibles are the talking points, housing prices, gas prices, and diesel prices.

Those are up more than $2 a gallon in a year in this state.

BOB BROOKS: I own my own small business, right?

So I have three diesel pickup trucks that I use to plow snow.

I don't want to drive those trucks.

I'm driving my wife's car right now, because, if I drive those trucks, the other day it cost me $220 to fill one.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

BOB BROOKS: I mean, we have to stop this endless war that he has going on for what reason, nobody knows.

I don't even think he knows.

LISA DESJARDINS: "He" is President Trump, who launched war in Iran and historic tariffs elsewhere in the name of American security and long-term wealth, but that has brought short-term price increases and a political nightmare for other Republicans.

JOE GRUTERS, Chairman, Republican National Committee: What we do have going for worse is, we have candidates like Ryan Mackenzie, who's proven himself to be a winner over and over again.

LISA DESJARDINS: That's National GOP Chairman Joe Gruters stumping alongside Congressman Mackenzie.

Across this district, some praised Mackenzie as accessible and hands-on.

NATE BARNDT, Ryan Mackenzie Supporter: For me, when I lost my job, and very much felt down and out.

I reached out to plenty of people who didn't help and didn't give me any resources, but he was someone who did.

LISA DESJARDINS: But Mackenzie knows the challenge.

REP.

RYAN MACKENZIE (R-PA): Well, certainly with when it comes to housing, that has been a long-running issue in our local community.

LISA DESJARDINS: As for his actions, he points to passage of the bipartisan housing bill in June, which limits corporate homebuying and boosts community banks.

REP.

RYAN MACKENZIE: We have made actual, real, substantial legislative changes that are going to bring more housing stock online and that will bring prices down in the long run.

WOMAN: Brooks borrowed big money from his family, then never paid it back.

LISA DESJARDINS: Mackenzie attacks Brooks for financial issues, a debt to his former mother-in-law he settled last month, and accusations of false information on a COVID application.

Brooks says Mackenzie's ads lie.

BOB BROOKS: I worry about the people in Pennsylvania 7.

LISA DESJARDINS: And he is focused on the campaign and affordability.

So is Deb Modica, whose farm nearly straddles the two competitive congressional districts.

A real estate agent, she harvests much of her family's food here and cares for a small group of horses.

DEB MODICA, Rob Bresnahan Supporter: So this is Stormy.

Stormy has Lyme's disease.

LISA DESJARDINS: Hey, Stormy.

Thanks to rising fertilizer prices, even the cost of hay is up.

DEB MODICA: Better grasses like alfalfa, they're like $12 to $20 a bale.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, I saw that.

DEB MODICA: It's crazy.

LISA DESJARDINS: That's wild.

DEB MODICA: So it's -- it's getting harder and harder for farmers.

LISA DESJARDINS: And you don't have choice.

Like, you got to... DEB MODICA: You have no choice.

You have to feed them.

LISA DESJARDINS: But Deb sees these costs differently.

She supports what President Trump is doing and believes in short-term sacrifice.

She's campaigning for Mackenzie and voting for Bresnahan, her congressman, this election.

DEB MODICA: To fix something doesn't happen overnight.

The economy has to get put back together.

And, unfortunately, it's got it -- things hurt, like a broken leg hurts why it's healing.

So we have to go through a little hurt until we get back to our healing.

LISA DESJARDINS: For Deb, a prime issue is the rise of Democratic Socialists, like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

You're not saying that all Democrats are socialists or communists?

DEB MODICA: Absolutely not.

I have a lot of friends that are Democrats, but they're not voting Democrat right now.

They're afraid of the same thing I am.

They're just commonsense people with commonsense wants, needs, and desires for their family, their life, their country.

PAIGE COGNETTI (D), Pennsylvania Congressional Candidate: My kids' great-great-grandparents grew up in Scranton in these two houses.

LISA DESJARDINS: The Democrat running here is not a Democratic Socialist.

Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti is running on affordability and banning corporate PAC money.

In this district, she is the one on the attack.

PAIGE COGNETTI: In Congress, members trade stocks on the same bills they vote for.

I will ban it.

LISA DESJARDINS: Bresnahan's account traded hundreds of stocks last year, including health care stocks ahead of his vote for the so-called Big Beautiful Bill that limited Medicaid.

REP.

MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The motion is adopted.

LISA DESJARDINS: Billboards cast him as deceptive, but: REP.

ROB BRESNAHAN (R-PA): Paige Cognetti and her allies are full of baloney.

LISA DESJARDINS: Bresnahan insists a third party handles his trades and points out he voted for stock trade limits this year.

Some voters we met praised his work.

Who are you voting for and why?

BRUCE STEWART, Rob Bresnahan Supporter: Rob Bresnahan.

And we're voting for him because he's done a great job.

So he's done a lot to bring funding to our -- to the -- to Northeastern Pennsylvania.

LISA DESJARDINS: However, Bresnahan's biggest problems may not be his record or his Democratic opponent, but his party and president.

MICHAEL O'BRIEN, Paige Cognetti Supporter: Bresnahan is a Republican.

He's a Trump supporter.

I just think that a lot of the things that they're in favor of, I'm not.

CARLOS MARTINEZ, Paige Cognetti Supporter: I plan on voting for Cognetti.

I don't really like what the Republican Party's doing, so definitely voting blue.

LISA DESJARDINS: In Northeast Pennsylvania, two vulnerable Republican incumbents and two ways of thinking about a common problem.

Everyone is feeling rising prices.

The question is whom they will blame or not on the ballot.