President Trump could be eyeing Minnesota as a way to expand his Midwest footprint in 2020, if the activities of his designated super PAC in the midterm elections are any indication.

Minnesota was among the limited 2018 battlegrounds to see a major investment by America First Action, which gathered data that might inform Trump’s strategy and boost his re-election bid over the next two years. America First Action tailored its activities to states and subregions considered crucial to Trump’s next campaign: Michigan; Minnesota; North Carolina; Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.

“America First Action invested in places where it could acquire information — polling, digital, data — in suburban and exurban areas that will be important,” a Republican insider said, noting that the group’s “micro” mail and digital messaging was built around promoting Trump as a means to test effectiveness.

The president came unexpectedly close to winning Minnesota in 2016, but lost to Hillary Clinton by just 1.5 percentage points. The state was largely uncontested in that campaign.

In races contested by both parties this year, the Republicans flipped two longtime Democratic congressional seats in rural and exurban regions of the state that have gravitated toward Trump. This happened even as the GOP lost control of the House in a broad national sweep that washed away two Republican incumbents in suburban Minneapolis.

After Trump became the first Republican in decades to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, his supporters see Minnesota as fertile ground for him to tighten his grip on the Midwest. Alex Conant, a veteran Republican strategist who hails from Minnesota, said the president’s prospects there depend largely on whom the Democrats nominate.

“If Democrats turn out to vote in Minnesota, it’s a huge problem for a Republican like Trump,” Conant said. “The problem is that the Twin Cities are so big, and suburban voters there don’t like Trump.”

The Republicans were shellacked in suburbs across America in the midterm elections, as affluent, educated voters that typically vote GOP for Congress rebuked Trump by punishing his party. In Minnesota, for example, Republicans lost the suburban Minneapolis 3rd Congressional District, where the GOP for years racked up big margins.

Meanwhile, Republicans continued to make gains in rural and exurban communities that used to be Democratic strongholds, also evidenced by what happened in Minnesota. The two districts the GOP won in the state were two of the only three seats the party flipped on Nov. 6.

However, there are a lot more available voters in the suburbs that are trending blue under his leadership, a critical challenge for the president. If Trump’s party can’t recover in suburbia in 2020 and he loses ground there compared to two years ago, states like Pennsylvania that the president won to much fanfare could slip away.

“All of the damage that was done in 2018 is correctable by 2020,” said Charlie Gerow, a Republican operative in Pennsylvania who said that GOP performance in the Philadelphia collar counties in the midterm elections should be a warning sign. “It’s going to be up to the Trump campaign to reclaim those educated, suburban Republicans that voted for Trump in 2016 but against some of the party’s congressional and legislative candidates in 2018."

Trump’s solid Electoral College victory was built on an expanded Republican coalition that included establishment-oriented voters in the affluent suburbs but added working-class voters from exurban and rural communities. It netted the president a few surprise victories in the Rust Belt, plus convincing wins in perennial swing states like Iowa and Ohio that made those battlegrounds look a lot more red than purple.

In small measure, this success repeated itself in the midterm elections in a few targeted Senate races, as the GOP ousted Democratic incumbents in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and, possibly, Florida.

However, Republicans lost Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada, where the suburban vote was influential. And Democrats could upset Trump’s winning strategy in 2020 if they can hold onto the gains they made in the suburbs.

This month, Democratic challengers won House seats that have voted Republican for decades — that includes suburban Atlanta’s 6th Congressional District, which had been in GOP hands since 1978, when it was flipped by Newt Gingrich, who would later become House speaker.

In 2020, Trump is unlikely to have the luxury of running against Clinton, a candidate that voters deemed as unlikable and as untrustworthy as the president, and who was under the ethical cloud of a federal investigation. Still, Republicans speculate that Trump might still repeat his 2016 success, especially if the economy remains healthy and the Democrats nominate a particularly liberal candidate.

Some Republican insiders predict that that is the only candidate the Democrats are likely to elevate.

“The candidate that Republicans should fear the most is the candidate that doesn’t exist in the Democratic Party at the moment,” said David Myhal, a GOP consultant based in Columbus, Ohio.