Randal Howard Paul is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he is the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul 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 in 2016 and won a third term in 2022. Paul was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.