You could see a rematch on your ballot this November for the 1st District Assembly seat after Renee Paplham announced her run for the office currently held by state Rep. Joel Kitchens. Paplham, a Kewaunee Democrat, and Kitchens, a Sturgeon Bay Republican, both made their announcements Tuesday afternoon, within hours of each other, nearly two years after the duo faced off in the 2024 election. It was Paplham’s first time as a candidate, and she hopes to take some of the lessons she learned from that experience into her campaign this year.

Paplham, a mediator with the Mediation Center of Green Bay, believes the district is ready for a change and thinks it goes well beyond the “D” and “R” that might be next to someone’s name.

Paplham and Kitchens are the first two candidates to announce their intentions to run for the 1st District Assembly seat, which has been under Republican control since 1995. A Democrat has not held the seat since the retirement of Luxemburg’s Lary Swoboda in 1994 after serving in the Wisconsin Assembly for more than 20 years.