This is an excellent question. The math is pretty easy to do and very few politicians want to seriously confront this reality. I did a calculation for a Toyota Camry Hybrid vs a Tesla Model 3 in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27096215), and even in the state of WA which has extremely favorable electricity vs gas tradeoff price wise, the Camry Hybrid is an easy $/mile winner. There were some rebuttals, but they do not change the fundamental conclusion.
Maybe things are a bit different on the lower end, but I haven't looked into it - the range on a Nissan Leaf is extremely low as you point out, and likely rules it out for many in the US regardless of $/mile calculations.