DJ, thanks for your herculean effort. Hopefully, MI, and not CA, will become the first state 90 years to elect two straight foreign-born, naturalized governors.
Some of the guys on your list were U.S. citizens at birth because they had U.S. citizen parents; Lowell Weicker comes to mind. But the Idaho governors appear to be legit naturalized citizens.
Whoops, I made an error on the Utah description. Gov. Spry did not face Bamberger in 1916. Bamberger faced another Republican who was the Progressive candidate in 1912, Nephi Morris. Bamberger’s Wikipedia entry is interesting, especially how he managed to defuse anti-Semitism during his campaign. Sounded like he was a really funny and personable guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Bamberger
He chose not to run for a second term in 1920 (perhaps wise, since even if he was mildly popular, he’d have likely been carried out because of the massive GOP national landslide, still our best year of the 20th century and to date).