Wow, I knew Jessica Sanchez was gaining on Joshua Ledet with the West Coast votes, but I was not sure if she would catch him. But now we know that Jessica will face Phillip Phillips in the American Idol Finale on Tuesday (PP versus BeBe). But the question is, can she possibly beat him? Can we just stop the season now and declare Phillip the winner and Jessica the runner up? If we look at the past two seasons, this is the third straight guy vs. gal finale, and on both previous seasons the guy always wins. But this season is a little different if we compare the Finales for Seasons 9, 10 and 11.
Season 9: Midwestern mid-20's male folk rock singer/songwriter versus Midwestern mid-20's female folk rock singer/songwriter. Most people consider the female contestant sang better in the Finale, but the guy won anyway. Female contestant ended up outselling the male contestant by a noticeable but not huge margin (neither sold 300K albums).
Season 10: Southern teen male country singer versus Southern teen female country singer. Most people consider the female contestant sang better in the Finale, but the guy won anyway. Male contestant ended up outselling the female contestant by a very large margin (the female sold ~300K albums, the male winner sold over a million and counting).
Season 11: Southern 20 year old male folk rock singer/songwriter versus West Coast teen R&B/pop power vocalist. Result?
In Seasons 9 and 10, Crystal and Lee were pretty similar except for their gender (Lee leaned somewhat more mainstream and Crystal was more "eclectic") and Scotty and Lauren were pretty similar except for their gender (Scotty leaned more traditional country and Lauren was more contemporary/pop country.)
But this year there is quite a difference between Phillip and Jessica in just about every way, area of the country they come from, musical style, vocal ability, personality, you name it. Can this help Jessica to possibly beat Phillip? Obviously the Hollie Cavanagh votes that added to Joshua's fan base were not enough to push him past Jessica voting fans, but will enough of the Hollie/Joshua power voters vote for Jessica to push her past Phillip? I guess we will see next week!