Who "won" each cycle?

[Antonio the Sixth]

1992: Dem, though underwhelmingly
1994: Obviously GOP
1996: See 1992
1998: Dem
2000: Dem
2002: GOP
2004: GOP
2006: Dem
2008: Dem
2010: GOP underwhelmingly
2012: Dem

[Antonio the Sixth]

2010: GOP underwhelmingly

What? Is this because the GOP didn't win the Senate? The only reason they didn't was because Dems had a huge majority that had been mainly built up over the past two cycles (which weren't up that year).

They could easily have won 9 seats, but blew 3 of them by nominating lunatics. OK, their House performance was definitely not underwhelming, but I was mostly thinking about the Senate. Gaining 6 seats definitely isn't worthy of a "wave year".

[Antonio the Sixth]

That's because I defined the victories are underwhelming based on expectations. An underwhelming victory is when a party that is widely expected to strongly benefit from an election cycle has an OK but not stellar performance. Anyway, I must admit that my rating was probably Senate-focused (the same is true for other years) and that on the broader picture the GOP didn't really underperform in 2010.