James Paul David "Jim" Bunning (born October 23, 1931) is an American (United States) politician and former pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Bunning pitched in the Major Leagues for 17 seasons, most notably with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Phillies. When he retired, he had the second-highest total of career strikeouts (Top 100 Major League Baseball strikeout pitchers) in Major League history; he is currently 17th. Bunning pitched a perfect game in 1964, a feat that has been accomplished only nineteen times in Major League history. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum) in 1996 (Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1996).

After retiring from baseball, Bunning returned to his native northern Kentucky and was subsequently elected to the city council, and then the state senate (Kentucky Senate), in which he served as minority leader. In 1986, Bunning was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentuckys 4th congressional district, and served in the House from 1987 to 1999. He was elected to the United States Senate from Kentucky in 1998 and has served there since 1999 as the Republican (United States Republican Party) junior U.S. Senator (United States Senate). Bunning is currently the sixth oldest U.S. Senator (List of current United States Senators by age) and the oldest Republican in the Senate. In July 2009, he announced that he would not run for re-election in 2010, citing difficulty in raising campaign funds.