After his government was defeated in a no-confidence vote, Ōhira decided to call the 1980 election rather than resign, but died suddenly of a heart attack.

[2] But even then, the parents had a hard time supporting their six children, and Ōhira assisted their side job from a young age.

As a trained economist and trusted member of Ikeda's "brain trust", Ōhira helped design and implement Ikeda's famed Income Doubling Plan, which helped turn the attention of the Japanese people away from contentious political struggles to a nationwide drive for economic growth.

[6] From 1968 to 1970, Ōhira served as Minister of International Trade and Industry under Ikeda's successor Eisaku Satō.

In 1972, Ōhira unsuccessfully competed for the party leadership before throwing his support to ultimate winner Kakuei Tanaka.

On 7 December 1978, he was appointed 68th Prime Minister, successfully pushing longtime rival Takeo Fukuda from his position.

[8] Ōhira was the sixth Christian to hold this office after Hara Takashi, Takahashi Korekiyo, Ichirō Hatoyama, Tetsu Katayama, and Shigeru Yoshida.

In the general election of 1979, the LDP narrowly failed to win an outright majority, but enough independent members of the Diet joined the party to enable Ōhira to remain in office, and he was duly reappointed on 9 November of that year.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Masayoshi Ito acted in Ōhira's place as deputy after his death.