on december 1, 1960 senator joseph c. o'mahoney died causing a vacancy that governor john j. hickey chose to fill himself and on december 22 he resigned from office to accept the appointment. according to provisions of the state constitution gage succeeded hickey as governor. before taking office he had to submit forty appointments for state boards and commissions and after taking office had to submit another thirty and with other transition issues to deal with made him unable to attend john f. kennedy's presidential inauguration. during his tenure as governor he supported measures to increase the amount of money given to the states from federal oil royalties and opposed most tax increases. in march 1962 william m. jack, the democratic nominee for governor in 1954, announced that he would mount a primary challenge against gage and gage narrowly defeated him by 4,176 votes and went on to be defeated in the general election by teton county commissioner clifford hansen.