Dan Donovan, the Republican attorney general nominee, clearly has Michael Bloomberg’s support. The mayor endorsed Donovan at his campaign kick-off, speaks warmly of him whenever given the chance and has already hosted a fundraiser for the Staten Island district attorney at his townhouse.

Who else will benefit from his financial and popular largess is, for now, unclear.

Which is not to say that Bloomberg, comfortable in his (for now) term-limited last round at City Hall and facing a potentially spiraling investigation into his campaign contributions thanks to the indictment of John Haggerty, will be sitting out this election year. Political events have already started appearing on his public schedule, including a short speech at the Republican State Convention dinner in early June to introduce former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a board member of his foundation and a charter-school advocacy ally.

And there will be more, on behalf of specific candidates.

“You should expect to see forthcoming announcements,” said Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson at a City Hall On/Off the Record breakfast June 24, confirming that the mayor’s ability to personally shape the dynamics of a race through his checkbook and endorsements will once again be a part of his larger political strategy.

“You could probably expect that the mayor will, as he has in the past, support the candidates that have supported us legislatively and in a governmental context,” Wolfson said. “In what form that support will take, I’m not going to pre-judge, but I think there’s every expectation that he will do as he has done—which is support politically those candidates who have supported us governmentally.”

What has changed, though, is Bloomberg’s commitment to supporting Republicans. As those involved in planning the mayor’s political agenda have made increasingly clear, he is done writing checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, done being a patron of the party that he ran as the candidate of in his three mayoral races. This year, Bloomberg’s approach will be supporting candidates who have voted as he likes on priority issues like charter schools or gun control, whether Democrat or Republican.

Especially for the State Senate, where the margin is narrow and the targeted races already getting ferocious, that could very quickly scramble the math.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg will have to navigate a relationship with a new governor. Like just about everyone else, the mayor is expecting that to be Andrew Cuomo, and whether or not Bloomberg makes an endorsement in the race (which remains unclear), he is ready to make himself available as an ally—provided Cuomo courts him properly and reciprocates by cooperating on things like aid to the city in the budget.

“Andrew only succeeds as governor if he takes on the big fights—budget, ethics, pensions. And he’ll only win if he has the consistent support of people like Mike Bloomberg because those are going to be brutal fights,” said one Bloomberg insider, adding, “Andrew clearly understands that he has to galvanize people willing to have his back.”

Overall, though, the Bloomberg circle insists that the mayor will be less political in the third term, if only because of the departure of Kevin Sheekey, who spent eight years being bored with most of his government portfolio and spent his days pacing the courtyard of City Hall on his cell phone or at downtown restaurants, stirring up political intrigue to keep the mayor in the headlines and himself interested. Bloomberg himself is no political junkie, and Wolfson, who took over Sheekey’s job as deputy mayor for governmental operations, has surprised many in city government by how focused he has been on budget negotiations and other government business.

Still, Sheekey is only as far away as Bloomberg LP, while Bradley Tusk, Bloomberg’s 2009 campaign manager, has his own shop to help out with some clients who happen to match up with the mayor’s interests, like Donovan and charter schools. If and when the mayor decides to flex the power of a self-funded operation beyond the bounds of required political-spending disclosures, Tusk’s company could prove very useful. As could Wolfson, who many suspect might be hungry for another stab at national politics.

Even, say, a presidential race, as much as the people around Bloomberg insist that this talk is pure media creation— much as they did during the run-up to the 2008 race, all while the mayor was laying significant preliminary groundwork to run.

The national pundits are even less convinced of Bloomberg’s viability now than they were last time around.

“The belief is that he still has national ambitions, I don’t know that too many people outside of his inner circle take them seriously,” said Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and a regular commentator on national campaigns. “I don’t care how much money he has, I just don’t see him as a credible national candidate. It was possible to make a credible argument in 2008. I just don’t think it’s possible anymore.”

What Bloomberg certainly has, Sabato said, is the ability to use his status as a respected, cross-partisan figure with the money at his disposal to fund campaign donations and independent activities. And that will make Bloomberg a potent political force even if he never runs for anything again.

“He’s the mayor of New York, he’s well known and he has resources,” Sabato said. “You put all that together, and he can certainly command a national stage for an issue.” But referring to the issue of gun control, in which the mayor has invested considerable political, personal and fi nancial capital, Sabato added, “That doesn’t mean the issue will go anywhere.”