While that's ideally the level at which it should happen, you run smack into the issue of first-past-the-post retardation. This, ideally, needs resolved but it never will because it doesn't favor the incumbents to do so.
For example, in 2020,
PA went to Biden by a 50-48.8 split. Back in 2016, it went to Trump in 48.2 to 47.5. That suggests a nearly dead-even heat between conservatives and liberals in the state-at-large, yet its state
senate and
house results favor republicans by a wide margin that suggests a whopping 42-56 split. If you look at the
districts (you can click on the map and the link thereby to see the population), you'll find that they're in terms of population fairly close - oscillating between about 240k to 300k. But the geography is just wild to achieve this, and leads to some smaller towns (allentown, state college, erie, etc) with sizable leftie populations being lumped in with deep red areas. In the same way that urban republican votes get quashed, suburban and rural democrat votes get quashed - and comparing the results of national elections with the state variants, it suggests there's more of the latter than the former.
Of course, all of this is solved - and it's maybe the best way to actually "resolve" this issue - through direct voter initiatives. You can't get more direct than a question on the state ballot: "hey, should we legalize it or nah?" But I don't see many purple states putting it to direct action like that.
