Rand Paul says he's weighing his 2028 candidacy: 'We’re thinking about it. I would say fifty-fifty'

Senator Rand Paul threw his name into the 2028 presidential race.

In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning airing Sunday, the libertarian Kentucky lawmaker was asked about a potential run and didn't shy away from the question.

"We're thinking about it. I would say fifty-fifty," said Paul, who will make a final decision after the midterm elections, where Republicans seek to maintain a majority in the lower House and the Senate.

It would not be his first time as a presidential candidate. In 2016, he competed for the Republican nomination with a libertarian profile but withdrew after a bad debut in the Iowa caucuses and funding problems. Now, the context is different, as President Donald Trump is ineligible to run again and the party is looking for its next major candidate.

What hasn't changed is his willingness to go against the grain. According to Roll Call's annual survey, Paul was the Republican senator who voted most often against Trump's 2025 position, although he did so on just 10.6% of the ballots. In that context, every dissent carries weight.

Recent examples are concrete. Paul was the only Republican to vote in favor of the resolution seeking to limit Trump's war powers in relation to Iran, earning him a public warning from the president, who said he preferred "the vote over the praise" and suggested that those who don't go along with the party "hopefully someday be gone." He also voted alone against Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill, arguing that there has to be someone in the Republican Party who still considers deficits to be a problem

Rand Paul's libertarian calling has family roots. His father, Ron Paul, ran three times: as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and 2012, but he always clearly presented himself as a Republican opposed to overseas wars, high taxes, and government debt contraction.

If he finally moves forward with his candidacy, Rand Paul will seek to break the Trumpist hegemony within a Republican Party increasingly molded in the image of the MAGA movement.