Yes, it's more of a British English vs American English. Just like "favourite" and "favorite".
Yeah, as I Georgia resident, I will gladly accept that we "misspell" a word that really has two acceptable spellings.
FWIW, I'm a fan of spelling it "gray". It just feels slightly more American for some reason.
People might have been wondering how to spell the name of Bob Gray, who ran to replace Tom Price for Congress in Georgia's 6th district. (Or maybe I'm trying too hard to find an explanation. You don't need to know how to spell someone's name to vote for them.)
Maybe people just searched it because they were curious if his last name was spelled in American English? Its a pretty big stretch but it's something I could see myself doing since it would be kind of interesting if it was spelled the British way.
Gray is the American English spelling, more or less.