This story was updated to add new information about Joel Kitchens, Mark Becker and Jacob VandenPlas.
Door County’s and Kewaunee County’s representatives in the Wisconsin State Legislature will face challenges in the November 2026 election if they wish to retain their seats.
Renee Paplham of Kewaunee announced April 14 she will challenge for a second time six-term incumbent Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, for his 1st District Assembly seat, and Mark Becker of Luxemburg announced April 16 he is running as an independent while Jacob VandenPlas on April 17 announced he is running as a Republican for the 1st District Senate seat currently held by four-term incumbent Sen. Andre Jacque, R-Scott.
Kitchens announced April 14 he will seek reelection, but Jacque told the Advocate April 16 he was deciding whether to run again and expected to make an announcement soon. A previously announced challenger as a Democrat for Jacque’s Senate seat, Sean Grorich, dropped out of the race.
The 1st Assembly District covers all of Door and Kewaunee counties and a small portion of northeastern Brown County, while the 1st Senate District encompasses Assembly Districts 1, 2 and 3, which includes all of Door and Kewaunee counties and parts of Brown, northeastern Manitowoc, northern Calumet and southwestern Outagamie counties.
Paplham had never run for public office when she challenged Kitchens in the 2024 Assembly race, which Kitchens won handily with just more than 24,000 of almost 35,000 votes cast, or about 62% of the vote. In Door County, Kitchens outpolled Paplham, 11,689 to 8,942.
Since her 2024 campaign, Paplham has remained actively engaged in the community, a news release from her campaign said. It said she has organized rallies and events, collaborated with neighboring county organizations and traveled across the district to hear the concerns of its residents.
“The people of this district want a representative who rises above partisan politics and focuses on what truly matters – improving the lives of working families,” Paplham said in the news release. “They want someone who will work in good faith to find real solutions to the issues our families and communities face.”
Paplham was born and raised in Kewaunee. She earned a degree in human development from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and works as a caregiver to individuals with special needs and as a mediator for the Mediation Center of Greater Green Bay.
Before her first run for office, she was the organizer of a March for Women’s Rights rally July 31, 2022, in downtown Kewaunee in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, essentially ending a national right to abortion. That effort led to volunteer work with the Democratic Party of Kewaunee County, which led to her 2024 campaign for the Assembly.
In her news release announcing her 2026 run, Paplham said the economy and education will be among the pillars of her campaign.
“As a middle-class working mom, I understand the issues people in my community face every day,” she said. “My campaign is focused on the economic security of families in this district and ensuring our children have access to strong public schools. Republicans have controlled Wisconsin’s budget for 16 years, and it’s clear we need new leadership, fresh ideas and stronger relationships to address the funding challenges they’ve left behind.”
Kitchens, a retired large animal veterinarian and former Sturgeon Bay School Board president, survived a four-way Republican primary with 44% of the vote to run for the seat in 2014, then won the seat with 56.7% of the vote that November. Although he’s had a Democratic challenger in all five of his reelection bids since then, he’s won them all convincingly, garnering between 60.1% and 68.4% of the vote in each.
“I truly appreciate the trust that the people of Brown, Door and Kewaunee counties place in me. I do not take that for granted,” Kitchens said in a news release announcing his reelection campaign. ‘I’m looking forward to working for them again and continuing to make Wisconsin the best place in the nation to live, work, raise a family and retire.”
In his announcement, Kitchens cited numerous bills and reforms he wrote, co-wrote and helped pass in the state Legislature. Among them, he wrote the Right-to-Read Act that’s meant to change the way children in schools learn to read by returning to phonics instruction and led the effort to ban cellphones from classrooms.
He also cited his work to cut taxes by more than $1.3 billion and cut taxes for retirees, eliminate taxes on natural gas and electricity, increase special education funding by $500 million, extend coverage for breast cancer screenings and postpartum coverage for mothers, help legal immigrants get the licenses they need to start a career, make sure farmers have access to veterinarians, and create a State Film Office to build on the success of movies and television shows filmed locally.
Kitchens said in the news release he wants to continue to protect taxpayers and improve education in the state.
“As the chair of the Assembly Education Committee, I will fight for taxpayers and for kids,” he said. “I will make sure we have a system that puts more money in the classroom and takes less out of your pockets.”
In the Senate race, Becker, who owns Specialty Auto Sales & Service in Suamico and whose family has lived in Luxemburg for generations, was chair of the Republican Party of Brown County from 2011 to ’13. In 2024, he joined Madison-based radio broadcasting company Civic Media to serve as host of the “Rational Revolution” podcast but recently left to focus on this campaign.
In his news release, he said he is running “because, for over a decade, voters in Northeast Wisconsin have been taken for granted by career politicians in Madison. The rise in partisan gridlock and government inefficiency has inspired (me) to be a leader driven by the desires of the people he serves, not the whims of either political party.
“This is a campaign that will show that when people of goodwill come together, we can build a better Wisconsin.”
Becker added he wants to address the cost of living, the cost of child and health care, fixing what he called “Wisconsin’s broken education system” and “protecting rural Wisconsinites from a politics that has abandoned them.”
“As the former chairman of the Republican Party of Brown County, I have witnessed, firsthand, how extreme politics and tribalism have warped the fabric of our state politics, for the worse,” he said. “The people of our district deserve a balanced, practical representative who will fight for them every day in Madison.”
Becker’s news release also said he’s been endorsed by Grorich, the former candidate for the same seat. Grorich announced in late September he would challenge Jacque as a Democrat but recently dropped out of the race.
“I know he is someone who will always put my neighbors and me first. I am really excited to have a candidate like him running,” Grorich said about Becker in the news release. “We both recognize that, regardless of political affiliation, Madison has failed the community that we care about. Mark is someone that I trust to lead the 1st State Senate District toward a healthier and more productive brand of politics.”
VandenPlas, of Sturgeon Bay, whose announcement called him a combat veteran, farmer and former leader of a veterans nonprofit organization, said he wants to bring real-world leadership and accountability to Madison.
“I’ve spent my life serving others, first in uniform, then working with veterans, and now as a farmer,” VandenPlas said in the news release. “I’m running because the people of Northeast Wisconsin deserve a voice that understands hard work, sacrifice, and what it takes to keep our communities strong.”
He cited rising costs, challenges facing family farms, Veterans Mental Health, and government overreach as key reasons that he entered the race.
The election will be held Nov. 3, with an Aug. 11 primary if needed for any race.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Kitchens faces challenge for Assembly, independent to run for Senate
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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