Hours after U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen lost his re-election bid last November, Republicans in the Third Congressional District started dissecting "what the heck happened," said Patti Meier, the district's GOP chairwoman.
In early December her executive team met to discuss fallout from Democrat Dean Phillips' win. They formed a steering committee to map out plans for the next election. Two more meetings followed. On Jan. 21, the full Third District committee will gather to talk strategy.
"It's not too early," said Meier, who lives in Plymouth. "We took a licking, so we've already picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and gotten to work."
There is no offseason in politics. Across Minnesota, activists in both parties are doing postmortems on 2018, preparing for municipal and school board elections this year and gearing up for 2020, when voters will choose a president, the U.S. House delegation, a U.S. senator and the Legislature.
Party officials are making lists of prospective candidates, analyzing data to zero in on precincts where they need to shore up support and debating ways to keep pace with rapidly evolving social-media tools.
"Everybody has kind of taken a breath, and now we're ready to go again," said Jim Hepworth of Lake Crystal, who helps lead First Congressional District Democrats.
They hope to have a search committee in place by the end of January. It will identify possible challengers of Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn if Democrat Dan Feehan, who lost in November, doesn't run.
Elections clarify voters' moods and demographic shifts and identify problems, said Jennifer Carnahan, who heads Minnesota's Republican Party.