In one of 2022’s final contested congressional primaries between progressives and the Democratic establishment, party leaders are coalescing around a Rhode Island official who has used retirees’ savings to pay more than a half a billion dollars in fees for high-risk financial investments.

The schemes backed by General Treasurer Seth Magaziner delivered subpar returns for teachers, firefighters, and other public sector workers already hit by benefit cuts — but they generated huge profits for the financial sector that funneled $178,000 into Magaziner’s treasurer campaigns and has now dumped more than $200,000 into his congressional campaign.

Those donations include $17,800 from close family members of the head of one of Rhode Island’s largest private equity firms, Nautic Partners, which over the past six years has received $95 million in additional commitments from the state pension fund on Magaziner’s watch — an arrangement that one ethics expert says “does not pass the smell test.”