Conservative US Senator Rand Paul announced Tuesday he is running for the Republican Partys nomination for the 2016 presidential race. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.

US Sen Rand Paul declared himself a candidate for the Republican nomination for president on Tuesday, aiming to upset the political order in Washington and disprove those in his own party who doubt that a fiercely libertarian conservative can be a serious contender.

Mr Pauls brand of politics could make him both an outlier and a target among his rivals. In a primary contest of candidates debating which of them is the most doctrinaire conservative, Mr Paul is likely to be the only one arguing for reducing federal drug penalties, clamping down on the nations intelligence agencies and taking a more deliberative approach to military intervention.

On social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, however, he does not stray from the Republican Party line. Mr Paul (52), a Kentucky senatore, will become the second Republican to enter the 2016 campaign, following his colleague in the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas. It will not remain a small field for long.

Packed field

Florida senator Marco Rubio is expected to announce his candidacy next week. Also waiting in the wings are Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, who are expected to declare soon, rounding out what Republicans say is perhaps their most competitive and robust slate of candidates since 1980, when Ronald Reagan faced competition from party heavyweights like George Bush and Howard Baker.

While Mr Pauls political resume may be short - he entered politics with the emergence of the Tea Party movement, winning election to the Senate in 2010, in his first run for office - he has built over the past year and a half what Republican strategists say are some of the most extensive political operations in the states that will vote first in the partys nominating process: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Much of the backbone for that political operation will come from the voters and volunteers who gave his father, former Texas representative Ron Paul, a base of energetic support in his own unsuccessful bids for the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

Varied constituencies

But Rand Paul has made it clear in his appeals over the past two years to constituencies as varied as students at black colleges, tech executives, movement libertarians and establishment Republicans that his intention is to seek out a far wider path to the nomination than his father did.

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Rand Paul joins race to be Republican presidential candidate