Two things trip us up with this kind of thing. 1. Biggest issue is that state borders don't track well with cultural borders, 2. The cultural aspects that are easy to analyze on paper don't always correspond to the feel of the locations.
This may be a hot take, but following many travels, I've determined that THIS is the Midwest.
Dakotas are amazing, but are nothing like the Midwest.
Missouri feels more like a Southern state than Midwest.
Kentucky is more like Tennessee and Virginia than the Midwest.