Carey Estes Kefauver (/ˈɛstɪs ˈkiːfɔːvər/ EST-iss KEE-faw-vər; July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the U.S. Senate from 1949 until his death in 1963. He was the winner of most of the 1952 Democratic Party presidential primaries, though he was not nominated at the convention.

After leading a much-publicized investigation into organized crime in the early 1950s, he twice sought his party's nomination for President of the United States. In 1956, he was selected at the Democratic National Convention to be the running mate of presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. He continued to hold his U.S. Senate seat after the Stevenson–Kefauver ticket lost to the Eisenhower–Nixon ticket. Kefauver was named chair of the U.S. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1957 and served as its chairman until his death.

Carey Estes Kefauver was born in Madisonville, Tennessee, the son of local hardware merchant Robert Cooke Kefauver and his wife Phredonia Bradford Estes. Kefauver was introduced to politics at an early age when his father served as mayor of their hometown. The elder Kefauver would later be an active and enthusiastic helper in his son's campaigns until his death in 1958 at the age of 87.

Kefauver attended the University of Tennessee and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1924. He was a tackle and guard on his college football team. He taught mathematics and coached football at a Hot Springs, Arkansas, high school for a year before going on to Yale Law School, from which he earned an LL.B. cum laude in 1927.

Kefauver practiced law in Chattanooga for the next twelve years, beginning with the firm of Cooke, Swaney & Cooke, and eventually becoming a partner in Sizer, Chambliss & Kefauver.

In 1935, he married Nancy Pigott (born January 21, 1911, in Helensburgh, Dumbartonshire, UK), the daughter of British-American engineer Sir Stephen Pigott, whom he had met during her visit to relatives in Chattanooga. A graduate of the Glasgow School of Art with a budding career as an artist, she changed focus after her marriage and worked diligently and effectively for her husband's campaigns. The couple raised four children, one of them adopted. Mrs. Kefauver died November 20, 1967.

Moved by his role as attorney for the Chattanooga News, Kefauver became interested in local politics and sought election to the Tennessee Senate in 1938. He lost but in 1939 spent two months as Finance and Taxation Commissioner under the newly elected governor Prentice Cooper. When Congressman Sam D. McReynolds of Tennessee's 3rd congressional district, which included Chattanooga, died in 1939, Kefauver was elected to succeed him in the House.

Kefauver was elected to five terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat. As a member of the House during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's time in office, Kefauver distinguished himself from the other Democrats in Tennessee's congressional delegation, most of whom were conservatives, by becoming a staunch supporter of the President's New Deal legislation. In particular, he backed the controversial Tennessee Valley Authority and was best known for his successful bid to rebuff the efforts of Tennessee Senator Kenneth McKellar to gain political control over the agency.