For months, the governor's race in Virginia has unfolded beneath a cloud of scandal over the Republican incumbent that spread to his would-be Republican successor, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II.
But now a potential scandal also threatens to distract the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe.
An electric car company Mr. McAuliffe founded is a target of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, government documents show.
The venture, GreenTech Automotive, was already a flash point because of the failure of enthusiastic promises of jobs made by Mr. McAuliffe, the former Democratic fund-raiser known for his showmanship and close friendship with Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The S.E.C. investigation has the potential to elevate GreenTech in the campaign by focusing on Mr. McAuliffe's history of mingling politics and business, as investigators target the company's fund-raising arm run by Anthony Rodham, a brother of Mrs. Clinton's. The commission is focused on possible fraud involving foreign investors in GreenTech, according to government documents.
The documents were made public on Friday by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who is investigating whether Mr. McAuliffe received special treatment from a top immigration official.
The official, Alejandro Mayorkas, is President Obama's pick for the No. 2 job at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Mayorkas said at a Senate hearing last week that he had met with Mr. McAuliffe once to listen to his complaints, but that he gave him no special treatment.
Mr. McAuliffe and Mr. Rodham sought dozens of green-card visas for foreign investors, primarily Chinese, under a program known as EB-5, which gives permanent resident visas in exchange for a $500,000 investment in an American company that creates jobs. GreenTech's financing depended on the EB-5 program, which was administered by a sister company that Mr. Rodham ran, Gulf Coast Funds Management. Both used the same office near Mr. McAuliffe's Northern Virginia home.
According to e-mails Mr. Grassley received from what he calls disgruntled Homeland Security employees, Mr. McAuliffe and his lawyers applied a drumbeat of pressure to speed up visa approval.
In a letter this week to Mr. Mayorkas, who oversees the visas as director of the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services, Mr. Grassley wrote, "At a minimum, you clearly created the impression among senior career staff that you were giving special treatment."
Mr. Mayorkas strenuously denied in Senate testimony last week that he had shown preferential treatment.
"I have never in my career used undue influence to influence the outcome of a case," he said.
A spokesman for Mr. Mayorkas said Friday that he had no further reply to Mr. Grassley.
The S.E.C. subpoenaed documents last month from GreenTech and Gulf Coast apparently aimed at determining whether the electric car maker had promised foreign investors risk-free returns, which would violate securities rules.
In a statement, GreenTech acknowledged the subpoena and said it was "cooperating fully" with the commission.
Mr. McAuliffe, through a campaign spokesman, said he had no knowledge of the investigation. He stepped down as chairman of GreenTech in early December last year to focus on his campaign for governor.
His spokesman, Josh Schwerin, said Mr. McAuliffe never sought special treatment from the immigration service through his and his lawyers' frequent e-mails and requests for meetings.
"Terry, like many business and political officials from both parties, was frustrated with the bureaucratic pace of the investment program," Mr. Schwerin said.
GreenTech's failure to live up to Mr. McAuliffe's original predictions — that it would create 900 jobs, versus the fewer than 100 currently, and produce more than 100,000 cars annually, compared with 7,000 this year — became a campaign issue from the beginning.
At the first debate of the race last month, Mr. Cuccinelli also attacked Mr. McAuliffe for skipping Virginia to set up the GreenTech factory in Mississippi.
"So run for governor of Mississippi," Mr. Cuccinelli jabbed.
Mr. Cuccinelli, the Virginia attorney general, is trying to deflect attention from the scandal tracking Gov. Bob McDonnell, who this week said he would return lavish gifts from a political donor, including a $6,500 Rolex watch, and repay nearly $125,000 in loans, which are the subject of state and federal investigations.
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