Timeline: Paul Ryan's 20 year political career

<p>There&#39;ve been reports for weeks and weeks that House Speaker Paul Ryan was hitting the road back to Wisconsin for good, but he and his team pushed back on that &mdash; until Wednesday.&nbsp;</p><p>In his announcement, Ryan said his decision was about family and not being a &quot;weekend dad&quot; to his children. But it&#39;s not the only reason. Ryan never wanted to be speaker; he&#39;s a policy nerd who wanted to cut taxes and reform things like Medicare and Medicaid. But the job became more difficult with a fractured caucus and an unpredictable president.&nbsp;</p><p>Ryan joins the dozens of Republicans heading for the exit this year, with many of them looking at the mounting evidence of a blue wave heading for D.C. The generic ballot average from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2018_generic_congressional_vote-6185.html" target="_blank">Real Clear Politics</a>&nbsp;is showing a seven-point advantage for Dems in the midterms this year.&nbsp;</p><p>&quot;I think he sees the writing on the wall, which is that this is going to be a really tough year for Republicans. These retirements aren&#39;t good for morale in the House GOP conference because it makes it look like the rats are leaving the ship,&quot; Politico&#39;s Daniel Lippman told Newsy recently.&nbsp;</p><p>Other retiring Republicans have jumped on the &quot;Never Trump&quot; train, but Ryan&#39;s likely to spend the next few months walking a tightrope, polishing the Republican brand without going too hard at any chaos in the White House.&nbsp;</p><p>&quot;He has this delicate balance act that he has to maneuver in terms of not criticizing the president too much,&quot; Lippman said.&nbsp;</p><p>Ryan leaving also sets up a fight that&#39;s already been brewing behind the scenes: the fight for his job. Whether it be for the speakership or the minority leader position if Dems take the House, the front-runners seem to be the current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy or Majority Whip Steve Scalise.</p><p><b>SEE MORE: <a href="https://www.newsy.com/stories/education-and-gender-gap-between-dems-and-gop-has-widened/">The Composition Of Our Political Parties Has Never Been Starker</a></b></p><p>&quot;McCarthy has the upper hand; he is the person in line. But Scalise, if he views McCarthy as vulnerable, he will continue his campaign, and so it&#39;s this shadow boxing,&quot; Lippman said.&nbsp;</p><p>Ryan&#39;s exit comes after a slog of a year with the gavel, and he&#39;s leaving some of his big initiatives on the table. But he was able to shepherd a tax cut bill through Congress, an achievement he (and other Republicans) are likely to tout.</p><p>&quot;I think he&#39;ll be seen as a moderately successful speaker. He didn&#39;t get everything he wanted accomplished; he didn&#39;t get entitlement reform, which he really wanted. He did get tax reform and tax cuts last year,&quot; Lippman said.&nbsp;</p><hr><b>Trending stories at <a href="http://www.newsy.com">Newsy.com</a></b><ul class="inline-related-links"><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/trump-threatens-syria-russia-with-missiles-in-tweet/">Trump Threatens Syria And Russia With Missiles In Early Morning Tweet</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/paul-ryan-not-seeking-re-election/">Paul Ryan Not Seeking Re-election</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/cnn-trump-contemplates-firing-deputy-ag-rod-rosenstein/">CNN: Trump Contemplates Firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein</a></li></ul>