Phil vs Jessica. These two contestants could hardly be more different.
Phillip Phillips has many traits that make him the favorite to win. He was featured in the auditions a lot, with a total pre-exposure time of more than 1000 seconds, and with his initial audition having been shown in-episode and in promos. He’s white, male, plays guitar, and sings mostly songs that are new to Idol. Compare that to winners past, and you check off a lot of boxes:
| Contestant | Season | Sex | Race | Age at start |
Hometown | Avg Of WNTS Rating |
New songs |
Bottom 2/3 ever? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kelly Clarkson | 1 | F | White | 20 | Burleson, TX | 76.8 | 11 | No |
| Ruben Studdard | 2 | M | Black | 24 | Birmingham, AL | 63.6 | 16 | Yes (Top 5) |
| Fantasia Barrino | 3 | F | Black | 19 | High Point, NC | 65.4 | 10 | Yes (twice) |
| Carrie Underwood | 4 | F | White | 21 | Checotah, OK | 57.3 | 15 | No |
| Taylor Hicks | 5 | M | White | 29 | Birmingham, AL | 61.3 | 10 | No |
| Jordin Sparks | 6 | F | Black | 17 | Glendale, AZ | 59.6 | 11 | No |
| David Cook | 7 | M | White | 25 | Blue Springs, MO | 64.7 | 15 | No |
| Kris Allen | 8 | M | White | 23 | Conway, AR | 61.1 | 7 | Yes (Top 5) |
| Lee DeWyze | 9 | M | White | 23 | Mount Prospect, IL | 57.8 | 9 | No |
| Scotty McCreery | 10 | M | White | 17 | Garner, NC | 52.5 | 13 | No |
Here are the stats for the finalists this year:
| Contestant | Sex | Race | Age at start |
Hometown | Avg Of WNTS Rating |
New songs |
Bottom 2/3 ever? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phillip Phillips | M | White | 21 | Leesburg, GA | 54.1 | 11 | No |
| Jessica Sanchez | F | Asian/ Hispanic |
16 | San Diego, CA | 66.6 | 6 | Yes (Top 7, Saved) |
The mean age of winners is 21.8 years, and Phil is 21. Phil was never in the Bottom Group, just like 7/10 of his predecessors. All winners except Lee DeWyze and Jordin Sparks hailed from the South or Midwest United States, and Phil is from Georgia.
On the flip side you have Jessica Sanchez. She had significantly less pre-exposure (600 seconds), with her audition never having been shown. She’s non-white (mixed race, if I’m not mistaken), female, has never played an instrument on stage, sings mostly songs that have been sung on Idol before. If she were to win, she would be the youngest ever, at 16. She was the bottom-vote-getter in the Top 7 and had to be saved. She is from California, which has not yet produced a winner.
So, on a purely demographic and historical basis, she would appear to be the underdog.
What can we put in Jessica’s column that favors her? Her approval rating, as computed by WNTS, is significantly higher than Phil’s, at about 67, much more in line with previous winners. She has four performances rated higher than 80 on WNTS (Love You I Do, And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going, I Will Always Love You, and Sweet Dreams), whereas Phil has only one (Volcano). The only contestants to win with as few as Phil has were Lee DeWyze (1 song over 80) and Scotty McCreery (0 songs over 80), so in this respect Jessica has the edge.
There is the matter that Jessica has a large following specifically because of her racial identity. Looking at Dialidol’s Geopredictions, Phil and Joshua barely registered any votes at all in Hawaii, a state with a large population of Filipinos. However, relying on that did not work out so well for Jasmine Trias, Camile Velasco, or Jonah Moananu.
As I said in an earlier post, I think Jessica can certainly win, but probably won’t. In light of the evidence above, I think you might agree that her odds hover somewhere around 2:1. But that’s enough of a margin that if she really kills it, she could take the title. This may be the first Finale since season 8 that actually mattered, and as such I think we can say that it’s been an entertaining year, despite the producer’s fumbles and the egregious judging.
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