This is John Batchelor, conversation with colleague Liz Peake about the prospects of the midterm election for the party in control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republicans.

History says they are not positive expectations. Liz fills in some of the blanks about how Democrats are talking about

cost of living, affordability

and the Republicans are not or not

much. Distracted by

foreign policy and tariffs.

Here's Liz to expect

a normal historical cycle

of the party out of power gains

the House of Representatives majority

in the first midterm. More tonight.

Well, I think Republicans are very anxious because, again, Trump ran on closing the border,

which he did. And, you know, I think the history of Donald Trump a little bit is he fixes

something and then everybody's attention moves elsewhere.

You know, in his first term, he fixed the economy, which had been sort of, if you remember, sort of staggering along under Obama.

And all of a sudden it began to do very well and brought because he brought taxes down, lightened regulation, blah, blah, blah.

And then everyone,

you know, voted for some other thing or their attention moved. Right now, immigration is like in the rear view mirror. And, of course, now got tarnished because of the perceived overachievement

or overaggressive activities of ice. So you have the everyone's focused on the cost of living.

And the Democrats, you've got to say, have been pretty smart to focus on affordability.

But John, it's crazy because every high caught, the hot, 10 most expensive places to live in America are all run by Democrats. Why? Because high

taxes burdensome regulation, all those things drive up the cost of housing, the cost of living,

...