GOP eager to get hands on campaign cash

Aaron P. Bernstein | Reuters

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) addresses a news conference where he announced he would not seek re-election in November, on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 11, 2018.

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement, which comes after his momentous two-decade run as the representative for Wisconsin’s 1st District, may soon leave his big store of campaign cash up for grabs, and many fellow Republicans in Congress will be eager to get their hands on it.

The Ryan campaign, one of the most prolific and battle-tested finance juggernauts in politics, will decide how to hand off the keys to a war chest worth millions of dollars, a Republican strategist close to leadership circles told CNBC.

Ryan’s announcement that he won’t seek another term comes after Team Ryan, a joint fundraising committee, reported it raised a record $11 million in the first quarter of 2018, according to a press release provided by the campaign on Tuesday.

Team Ryan also raised $55 million throughout the 2018 election cycle, according to the Federal Election Committee, with large portions of that total being transferred to the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC, a group dedicated to helping Republicans get elected to the House of Representatives.

A separate Republican source close to Ryan, who declined to be named, told CNBC that the committee transferred more than $40 million to the NRCC, meaning that the funds could be used in other ways beyond just helping campaigns.