Carter can be regarded as fitting into the more recent era of Wyoming's politics in which Democratic candidates have had a much more difficult time on a local and national level, in regards to Wyoming's elections. Carter himself was elected in the wake of the Watergate Disaster and was not a popular candidate in Wyoming, where he did not receive the state's support. No Democrat running for President has received any significant support in Wyoming since Lyndon Johnson.
In Wyoming, former University of Wyoming professor, Democrat Gale McGee, was defeated by Malcolm Wallop, in what may now be posed as perhaps the beginning of Wyoming's march to the far right. McGee, who had been in office since 1959, ran a poor campaign and didn't really seem to want to be reelected. His positions were generally conservative, with an occasional foray into the liberal side of politics of his day. He had been an opponent of the Vietnam War, and had sought conscientious objector status prior to World War Two, although he withdrew it after Pearl Harbor.
Gale McGee
McGee came from a Republican household in Nebraska. His parents were staunch Protestants.
Malcolm Wallop
Wallop, a member of English nobility, would serve three terms. His 1976 campaign is particualrly remembered for this advertisement.
It's interesting to note, in that some of the themes that became prominent Republican ones by 1980 were already there, including that regulations were unfairly burdening small business. Also of note, the common Wyoming Republican embrace of agriculture, even though the Republicans routinely screw American agriculture, was already there as well.
This has surfaced this year, as always. Harriet Hageman, who comes from a ranch/farm and has an AS and BS in Agriculture, has at least one television advertisement of herself uncomfortably walking with a rancher (probably her nephew), wearing her patented black dress with Southwestern jewelry. Chuck Gray, who studiously avoids wearing a cowboy hat (with his smalls stature, he'd disappear), has videos of himself in rural settings and one in which he's walking with a Natrona County rancher.
As a total side, but sort of an interesting observation, McGee, a member of the "liberal" party, was married once, having married in 1939. Wallop, the conservative, was married four times.
In contrast to the Senate race, Wyoming Democrat Teno Roncalio, as World War Two veteran and Sweetwater County lawyer, won reelection against challenger Larry Hart.
Elsewhere, a 30 year old William Jefferson Clinton was elected as Attorney General of Arkansas.
A bomb destroyed the house of Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the Front National.
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