HARRISBURG — It has been a precipitous fall for Rob McCord.

He announced his candidacy for Pennsylvania governor in September 2013, fresh off his re-election as state treasurer, and helped fight then-Gov. Tom Corbett’s effort to hire a private firm to manage the state lottery.

Less than a year-and-a-half later, McCord is out of public office after being beaten soundly in the Democratic gubernatorial primary and resigning as treasurer. He also is facing possible prison time in a campaign finance case.

Today, McCord is due in a federal courtroom in Harrisburg, where he is expected to plead guilty to two counts of extortion stemming from allegations that he used his position as treasurer to threaten two potential donors during his failed gubernatorial campaign.

Papers filed in federal court by prosecutors singled out McCord’s dealings last spring with a Philadelphia-based law firm and a Western Pennsylvania-based property management firm. In phone calls apparently recorded by investigators, McCord suggested to a fundraiser, a lawyer and a senior official at the law firm that the firms could suffer the loss of state government business if they did not contribute a sufficient amount of money to his campaign.

The maximum penalty for each charge is 20 years in prison.

The investigation has fueled speculation in political circles about what led investigators to record McCord’s conversations, what took so long to charge him and whether McCord cooperated against anybody else in the political or finance communities.

McCord, 55, got his start working in Washington, where he gained exposure to the technology sector, first as an aide to then-U. S. Rep. Norman Mineta, who represented California’s Silicon Valley, and later as the CEO of the nonprofit Congressional Institute for the Future.

McCord was re-elected in 2012 to a second, four-year term as treasurer, raising millions of dollars in both of his races — he even drew about $1 million from his own wallet in the 2008 Democratic primary.

As a candidate for governor, he contributed $2.2 million of his own money and was backed by most big labor unions. He labeled himself the “Corbett slayer” in the crowded Democratic Party primary field. By April, when his calls were being recorded, McCord was trailing badly to the eventual primary winner, Tom Wolf, and he was burning quickly through his campaign cash with about a month before the primary election.