Oddly, Gravel in the fall of 1948 was the elector for the Eighth Congressional District committed to then Governor Strom Thurmond, the official Democratic presidential nominee in Louisiana, running regionally on a States Rights' Party ticket against Truman and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.
In 1952, Gravel was again a Democratic Party elector committed to Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois.