These Democrats flipped House in 2018. 2022 will be harder.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Moments after she flipped a longtime Republican congressional seat in 2018, Iowa Democrat Cindy Axne declared that “Washington doesn't have our back and we deserve a heck of a lot better.”

Now seeking a third term in one of the most competitive House races, Axne is sounding a similar tone, telling voters she's delivered for Iowans “while Washington politicians bicker.”

But Axne and other Democrats from the class of 2018 are campaigning in a much different political environment this year. The anxiety over Donald Trump's presidency that their party harnessed to flip more than 40 seats and regain the House majority has eased. In its place is frustration about the economy under President Joe Biden.

And many districts that were once competitive have been redrawn by Republican-dominated state legislatures to become more friendly to the GOP.

“It was a very different world," pollster John Zogby said of 2018. “Inflation's now where we haven't seen in 40 years and it affects everybody. And this is the party in power. With campaigns, you don't get to say, ‘But it could have been' or ’But look at what the other guy did.'”

Many swing-district Democrats elected four years ago were buoyed by college-educated, suburban voters, women and young people shunning Trump. That means many defeats for second-term House Democrats could be read as opposition to Trump no longer motivating voters in the same way — even though the former president could seek the White House again in 2024.

Trump continues to shape politics in a far more present sense, too. He's dominated the national Republican Party despite spreading lies about 2020's free and fair presidential election and now facing a House subpoena for helping incite the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol last year.

Tom...