Does House Speaker Paul Ryan's retirement signal a blue wave in the fall?

Nicole Gaudiano and Eliza Collins | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Paul Ryan won't seek re-election, here's who could replace him House Speaker Paul Ryan has announced he will not run for re-election, which means Republicans will have to fill that void in order to keep their majority.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul Ryan's decision to retire is a blow to Republicans, raising questions about their chances in November's midterm elections and the possibility of a Democratic wave.

Ryan, R-Wis., adds his name to 37 other Republicans who have either announced they are retiring or running for a different office.

Democrats are defending 19 open seats. They need a net gain of 23 seats to win control of the House.

"I think (Republicans) know that it’s going to be rough around here in the fall. I think that they know that things are going to change," said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee. "They’re not going to declare defeat, but it’s not a good sign. It’s chaos."

Said Tyler Law, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House campaign arm: "Stay tuned for more retirements as Republicans increasingly realize that their midterm prospects are doomed.”

Ryan said he will remain speaker through the remainder of the year but that it was time to go home to his family. He told reporters he did not want his three teenage children to know him as a "weekend dad."

House members leaving the weekly meeting where Ryan told them his plans said that they understood his decision and would miss him dearly. But, members said, Ryan's impending departure would have no impact on the party's ability to compete in November.

"In the House, you are responsible for that 750,000 people you represent, the relationships that you build, so I think it will have minimal impact as far as the specific members of the House," said Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chair of the Republican Study Committee, a 150-plus member group of conservative House Republicans.

The Wisconsin Republican has proven to be a prolific fundraiser for his party. On Monday, his campaign announced that he had raised more than $11 million over the last fundraising period and more than $54 million during the election cycle. Of that, Ryan transferred $40 million to the House Republicans’ campaign arm.

Dan Eberhart, an Arizona-based oil investor and a major Republican fundraiser, said Ryan’s decision “all but assures (House Minority Leader Nancy) Pelosi will once again hold the speaker’s gavel in the House.”

“That’s bad news for President Trump, and it’s bad news for America’s economic future,” he said in an email.

Eberhart, who has worked this year on helping Republicans keep the Senate, said more donors are “going to naturally shift their focus to the Senate.”

David Wasserman, House editor for the Cook Political Report, wrote that Ryan's early lame-duck status could hamper his PAC's ability to raise money to defend other GOP incumbents who are "badly in need of air cover."

But many GOP members and groups aligned with Ryan dismissed concerns that the speaker’s announcement would hurt his ability to fundraise for the party.

“People should not misread this," said Rep. Martha McSally, who is running for Sen. Jeff Flake's seat in Arizona. "He's a fundraiser, and he's going to sprint through the tape and lead through the midterms for the House. He's going to give it every last thing he's got.”

Corry Bliss, executive director of Paul Ryan’s super PAC, said Ryan “remains personally committed to ensuring CLF continues to succeed and has the resources it needs to maintain the House Majority.”

Political handicappers quickly shifted the race for Ryan's seat from the "solid Republican" column to "lean Republican." Wasserman wrote that the race has potential to become even more competitive. Wisconsin's filing deadline is June 1.

Randy Bryce, a Democrat running for Ryan's seat, raised $2.1 million in the most recent fundraising quarter, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Monday.

Alex Conant, a GOP strategist who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, said Ryan’s retirement didn’t change the uphill battle Republicans were already facing in keeping the House majority.

“If it took Ryan retiring for a member to realize that this is going to be a challenging year, they haven’t been paying attention,” he said.

Ryan and President Trump had two different visions for the party, Conant said, "and after today it’s clearly Trump’s party."

"If Republicans lose in November it will be a rejection of Trump — not Ryan," he said.

Along with Ryan, Rep. Dennis Ross of Florida also announced his retirement on Wednesday. Trump won Ross's district by 10 percentage points.

Ethan Todras-Whitehill, co-founder and executive director of the group Swing Left, said many of the seats Republicans are leaving are in reliably red districts. But Ryan and Ross's districts were on the Swing Left map of seats the group considers "winnable" before they announced their retirement. Swing Left helps progressives in safe Democratic districts support candidates in the closest competitive district.

"It’ll be a new face against a new face, and we think in a wave election that we’re expecting in 2018, that puts us at a significant advantage in those seats," Todras-Whitehill said. "These were seats that were already on our target list that just became a heck of a lot more winnable."

Ellison said Democrats should make an extra effort to engage more voters.

"If there’s going to be a wave, it’s going to be a wave because we get out there and really hustle and organize," he said. "But I think that if people are looking for a sign of encouragement, this could well be it."

Contributing: Fredreka Schouten and Marilyn Icsman