There’s been a trend. There’s a lot more elections other than the Presidential election - Senate, House, Governor, state legislatures, etc. Also, a Republican hasn’t a won a majority of Midwestern states since 1988. Illinois and Michigan used to be pretty Republican state, and of course so were Ohio and Indiana, which are now slipping away also. I’ll admit my home state may be a lost cause...
This is what matters.
We won both the House and the Senate in 2002 and 2004. Remember, before 1994, the Dims had controlled The House for decades. After 1994, we controlled the house for 12 years. If there's a trend, it seems we have done better in the last 20 years than we did in the 20 year before that.