Randal Howard Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he has described himself as a constitutional conservative and a supporter of the Tea Party movement. His libertarian views have been compared to those of his father, three-time presidential candidate and 12-term U.S. representative from Texas, Ron Paul. Paul attended Baylor University and is a graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine. He was a practicing ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Kentucky, from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2010. He was re-elected to a second term in 2016 and won a third term in 2022. Paul was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. While he initially opposed Donald Trump during that year's Republican primaries, he supported him following his nomination and became one of his top defenders in the Senate during his first impeachment trial, though on key votes he aligned with Trump the third least among Republican senators during his first presidency. Paul will become Kentucky's senior senator when Mitch McConnell retires from the Senate in 2027.