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Washington In the Senate, tea party darlings Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky and Ted Cruz (R) of Texas have often stood shoulder-to-shoulder as allies.

In March 2013, when Senator Paul launched his nearly 13-hour talking filibuster opposing the nomination of John Brennan for Central Intelligence Agency director and condemning the use of drones, his freshman colleague from Texas helped him on the Senate floor by addressing legal concerns and reading aloud supportive Twitter comments.

Six months later, Paul returned the favor by putting in a cameo appearance when Senator Cruz staged his own 21-hour filibuster against the Affordable Care Act. The Cruz-a-thon led to a 16-day partial government shutdown that tea partyers strongly supported even though it backfired with a plummet in GOP approval ratings.

With Paul announcing his presidential bid on Tuesday, however, hes now competing with Cruz, who was the first to announce his candidacy on March 23. That raises the question as to which of them if either, given the potentially crowded field will carry the day for the anti-establishment wing of the party and whether either can broaden his appeal enough to win the nomination.

Despite being steeped in the same tea party brew Paul was elected in the movements wave year of 2010 and Cruz followed in 2012 the two men contrast sharply in style, substance, and strategy.

Rand Pauls public persona is so different from the one Cruz has adopted, says Stephen Voss, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. I dont think theyre going to be pressing the same buttons.

The tousle-haired and boyish looking Paul, emerging from a television studio in Ray-Bans and shorts, exudes authenticity an observation once made by his establishment backer and fellow Kentuckian, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

Some of the tech-savvy libertarians ideas he favors a smaller United States footprint overseas and prison sentencing reform at home stray from GOP orthodoxy.

Pauls strategy is to grow the libertarian brand within the GOP by energizing new voters: young people and minorities. Last month he spoke at the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, and hes reached out to African-Americans in Ferguson, Mo., in Detroit, and at historically black colleges.

Cruz, on the other hand, is buttoned-down and combative not a hair out of place on his person or in his disciplined message of conservative values and hawkish foreign policy.

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Rand Paul vs. Ted Cruz: Is 2016 big enough for both of them? (+video)

FILE: Sept. 10, 2013: GOP Sens. Rand Paul, Ky., and Ted Cruz, Texas, at a Tea Party Patriots rally on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C.(REUTERS)

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul both tapped into the powerful Tea Party movement, fueled by frustration with big government and overspending, to win their seats in Congress.

Now, the two freshman senators find themselves competing directly for that same constituency as they seek the party nomination in the 2016 presidential race. And the Tea Party wave -- which Paul rode in 2010, followed by Cruz two years later -- may only be big enough for one of them this time around.

Paul, on Tuesday, formally announced his presidential bid, vowing to "take America back" and wielding a "message of liberty." In a fiery speech tapping into the same kind of Beltway frustration that boosted Republicans in 2010, Paul blamed both parties for Washington's dysfunction.

He and Cruz are now the only two announced candidates on the field. Though neither has come out brawling, an evident Paul-Cruz rivalry has simmered in recent months and is sure to grow as primary season gets underway.

The two so far have politely sparred, with Paul, of Kentucky, recently questioning whether Cruzs message is broad enough to win.

"I guess what makes us different is probably our approach as to how we would make the party bigger," Paul told Fox News after Cruz, of Texas, officially announced his bid in late March. Ted Cruz is a conservative, but it also goes to win-ability. And people will have to make a decision, which is the Republican who can not only excite the base but also bring new people into the party without giving up their principles."

On Tuesday, Cruz was cordial, saying he respects Paul's "talent" and "passion."

Cruz and Paul unsurprisingly agree on most issues -- from overhauling the federal tax code to repealing ObamaCare.

But the point where they diverge appears to be at the waters edge of American politics.

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RIVALRY BREWING Cruz, Paul competing for Tea Party base in 2016

Provided by AFP Rand Paul, a conservative libertarian and precursor of the Tea Party branch of his party, is likely to become the second major Republican to join the 2016 presidential race when he announces his candidacy on Tuesday

Rand Paul, a conservative libertarian and precursor of the Tea Party branch of his party, will become the second major Republican to join the 2016 presidential race when he announces his candidacy on Tuesday.

Rand has summoned supporters and reporters to a speech at 1600 GMT in Louisville, Kentucky, where he has served as senator since January 2011.

Paul will follow Texan Ted Cruz, who launched his candidacy two weeks ago with an appeal to the religious right, among others.

Jeb Bush, brother of former president George W. Bush, leads in opinion polls for the primary elections, although he has yet to announce his candidacy officially.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has a team and campaign machine in place, suggesting she will announce in the coming weeks.

In recent days Rand Paul's team has left little doubt as to his presidential ambitions. A video released recently and hinting at a campaign slogan said "One leader will stand up to defeat the Washington machine and unleash the American dream."

It was by defying the Republican "establishment" that Paul, now 52, launched his political career in 2009. This was at the start of the anti-tax and small-government movement that would come to exercise a powerful influence within the Republican Party and come to be known as the Tea Party.

And it is by billing himself as a different kind of Republican leader that Paul will look both to rally ultra-conservatives during the primaries and then broaden the base of his party among young people, independents and minorities. It will be a true high wire act.

His father Ron Paul was a "libertarian" candidate for the presidency -- conservative on economic issues but liberal on social issues.

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Rand Paul to become second Republican to enter US presidential race

Watch "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" Wednesday at 5 p.m. ET for an interview with Rand Paul.

Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.

The test of that theory began Tuesday when the Kentucky senator made official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.

"Today I announce with God's help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America," Paul said at a rally in Louisville.

Paul immediately hit the campaign trail for a four-day swing through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.

A poster from the Rand Paul for President campaign.

READ: Can Rand Paul escape his father's shadow?

In his speech, he called for reforming Washington by pushing for term limits and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. He argued that both parties are to blame for the rising debt, saying it doubled under a Republican administration and tripled under Obama.

"Government should be restrained and freedom should be maximized," he said.

The line-up of speakers who introduced Paul sought to paint the senator as a nontraditional candidate with diverse appeal, and by the time he got on stage, he was the first white man to address the crowd.

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Rand Paul: 'I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president'

Anthony Salvanto and Jennifer De Pinto

As Rand Paul officially begins his pursuit of the presidency Tuesday, his campaign's opening video hinted at the mix of constituencies and themes he'll try to balance: there's the Tea Party strain of anti-spending (and anti-Washington) activism that first catapulted him to national prominence. There's his outreach to groups beyond the Republican base which, the video notes, made him so interesting to many pundits, and which might serve him well in the general election, if he can get the nomination. And we've already seen the start of a robust digital and social media strategy aimed, in part, at helping pull in new and younger voters.

From our latest poll, taken at the end of March, Paul begins among the top tier in terms of raw consideration numbers, but still somewhat unknown (36 percent) to a wider audience. Paul doesn't have the name recognition of Jeb Bush or Mike Huckabee but elicited more opinions than did Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio at the time. (Consideration, we should note, is all one can really expect from voters at this stage; forced, head-to-head choices are still months off.)

When we look at people who are considering Paul and then who else they're considering, the heaviest competition comes from both the well-known names of Bush and Huckabee, but also from Cruz, Rubio and Rick Perry. There's no real surprise there: the latter three have all either come up through the Tea Party movement or - in the case of Perry - actively sought its support in recent years.

Paul rose to prominence as part of the Tea Party wave in 2010, and today he still performs well among voters (independents as well as Republicans) who align themselves with the movement. He gets half of them to consider him, and has a consider/not consider ratio of slightly better than 2 to 1 with Tea Party backers.

And then there are the younger voters. It's not just about the social media campaign, of course, but also about more libertarian stances on privacy and on social issues which might be used to appeal to younger conservatives. Paul's father's campaign also attracted them, though the Rand Paul campaign stresses the differences between the two men. In 2012 Ron Paul did especially well among voters under 30 as especially in the early contests, trouncing the competition in Iowa by 25 points, and getting a 20-point win over Romney among these younger voters in New Hampshire, even as Romney was winning the state easily overall.

At the moment Paul does relatively better among younger voters than older ones, if we look over the last two rounds of polling combined - including both Republicans and independents. (Independents can vote in many primaries, and many young voters who backed Ron Paul considered themselves independent.)

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What the polls say about who might vote for Rand Paul