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Two ways to determine 2016’s winner

Donald Trump (left) and Hillary Clinton.Wire photos

There are two ways to figure out who could win the 2016 presidential campaign. There is the traditional method of going to a website with an interactive Electoral College map, then plugging in the leader in polls of each state to see if a candidate gets to 270 electoral votes.

But this year’s presidential race might offer a simpler method for predicting a winner: Just call up a mainstream news outlet (may I suggest BostonGlobe.com?) and count how many stories appear about each candidate.

Why is this a shortcut? The candidates themselves seem to be buying into the premise that if the campaign is defined by their opponent, they will win. In other words, if Hillary Clinton can convince voters to reject Donald Trump, she can win. If Trump can convince voters that Clinton is the real issue, he can win.

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And lately it is almost a given that if there is a story about a presidential candidate, it is likely a bad one.

Consider the stories that I labeled as must read for Trump and Clinton in today’s Ground Game newsletter. Yesterday, one could argue, the number of stories about Clinton’s emails meant that Trump won the day. But because August was so bad for Trump, who dominated headlines with his fight with the Khan family, his poll numbers are suffering today.

There has been a lot of talk about how Trump may try to rebrand himself with his new campaign manager, outreach to African-American voters and maybe softening his tone on immigration. But all he really needs to do is steer the news cycle away from Trump -- to Clinton.


James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his daily e-mail update on the 2016 campaign at www.bostonglobe.com/groundgame.

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