Grilling President Donald Trump’s newest Cabinet pick may seem like an inauspicious way for a Republican to begin a national campaign, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) increasingly sounds like someone with his eyes on 2028.
Paul would likely have had strong words for Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) regardless. Mullin suggested he understood why Paul’s neighbor physically assaulted him, not exactly a collegial stance to take toward a fellow Republican senator. Then the Oklahoman found himself testifying in front of a committee Paul chairs, trying to win confirmation for a new job.
It was worse than when Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, during a failed Senate run, promised to vote against then-Sen. Jesse Helms for committee chairmanships, only to need a committee Helms chaired to advance his subsequent, also failed, nomination to become ambassador to Mexico.
But Paul looks ready to chart a different course for the Republican Party in the next round of competitive primaries, even if he wouldn’t necessarily start in the top tier.
The Iran war has created a lane for an antiwar candidate, even if Vice President JD Vance, generally an intervention skeptic, is the putative front-runner, assuming military operations continue into at least 2027.
Deficit hawks have less representation in the GOP these days than Iran hawks, which brings about a sequel to the libertarian moment that first vaulted Paul to national prominence more than 16 years ago.
Paul has also been a consistent foe of Trump’s tariffs, which poll badly in a political climate dominated by affordability after years of inflation.
Former President George W. Bush and his acolytes were as dominant within the Republican Party as Trump is today when Ron Paul’s GOP presidential campaigns first gained unexpected traction in 2008 and 2012. By 2010, Paul’s son was able to defeat an establishment candidate backed by kingmaker Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a GOP primary and then the general election for Senate.
But the younger Paul did not do as well as his father when he ran for president, with a disappointing 2016 primary campaign that saw him struggle to stay on the main debate stage and finish a distant fifth in Iowa. The elder Paul ran third in the caucuses years earlier.
Ron Paul’s coalition was populist as well as libertarian. In 2016, both Trump and fellow Tea Partier Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) competed with the younger Paul for votes. Trump, in particular, upended the primaries that year.
Paradoxically, one of the reasons the Kentucky senator did not do as well as his Texas congressman father is that he was trying to reach beyond the Ron Paul base. Rand Paul did not appear interested in a movement-building campaign. Past presidential candidates as disparate as televangelist Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the elder Paul, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have demonstrated that a presidential campaign can boost a political movement without the candidate getting particularly close to their party’s nomination.
After a decade of more nationalistic populism at the helm of the GOP, Paul might be ready for a little movement-building in the tradition of his father. Libertarian Republicanism could certainly use it.
Former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash is out of both Congress and the party. How Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) performs against a Trump-endorsed challenger in his May 19 primary will be instructive. Strict fiscal conservatives are a small minority in an era of $1 trillion budget deficits. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency efforts quickly stalled. The Iran war suggests the upper hand advocates of foreign-policy restraint were supposed to enjoy under Trump was overstated.
It’s in this context that a long-shot presidential campaign could be useful, spawning a new generation of activists and institutions, no matter what the final vote tallies are.
Paul has clearly been losing his patience with the GOP’s current trajectory for a while. He was slow to endorse Trump in 2024, either during the primaries, even after it was clear Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was going to lose — Paul declared himself “Never Nikki Haley” ahead of the Iowa caucuses — or in the general election. Paul has lamented the influence of hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
VANCE ASKS NORTH CAROLINA TO PRAY FOR THE TROOPS, BUT DOESN’T DENY CAUTIONING TRUMP AGAINST IRAN WAR
The Kentucky senator has sided with Democrats against Trump on military interventions in Venezuela and Iran. This independent streak has raised Trump’s ire and irritated allies like Mullin, the cantankerous Department of Homeland Security nominee to replace the ousted Kristi Noem.
That could be a problem if Paul runs again for the Republican presidential nomination. But it also might help him carve out a distinct lane for himself during a fight for his party’s future.