Perhaps no issue is as central to the functioning of modern democratic institutions and guarantees of representation as the rules by which representatives are elected. In this respect, despite the variety of alternative election mechanisms, plurality is the predominant rule in modern democracies. “One of the consequences of using plurality rule is that it leads the outcome to a two-party system. This empirical result is known as Duverger's Law” (Levin and Nalebuff, 1995, p. 7). Consequently, elections in modern democracies usually involve a two-candidate campaign. This study develops a model of the strategic decisions faced by candidates in these campaigns. While building on previous models that address the effect of the rent magnitude, opponent spending, and third-party contributions, this model incorporates the effect of variations in candidate attributes. Specific attributes modeled are an election bias, seat bias, the political price of contributions, and the ability to convert campaign funds to personal use. The primary strategic variable is the candidate's campaign spending; however, the related issues of optimal contributions and converting contributions to personal use are also treated. A change in U.S. election law created a natural experiment that allows the theoretical implications of the model to be tested with data from U.S. congressional elections. However, the results are generally applicable to other plurality systems.

Buchanan (1980) identifies the expenditure of resources to capture political office in order to receive payments from others as a form of rent seeking.