In season 3 of “The Voice” we saw Cassadee Pope open up a big lead that she never relinquished on her way to winning. This season we are seeing a similar thing happen with Danielle Bradbery and Michelle Chamuel. With each passing week they are further setting themselves apart from the rest of the competition and setting up a showdown between them in the finale.
Danielle Bradbery is the clear favorite. The Las Vegas odds makers give her 1 to 2 odds (Michelle has 2 to 1 odds). Her songs during the last two weeks broke into the Top 10 of the iTunes Top 100 chart and she has the most Twitter followers of the remaining contestants. Her momentum is building by the week and she is starting to look like Cassadee Pope all over again as she pulls away from the pack.
What is different this season is that Michelle Chamuel seems to be right on her heels. Last season saw multiple artists break into the iTunes Top 10, this year Danielle is the only one to have done it, but Michelle has cracked the Top 20 and last week her song made it as high as #13 so she isn’t that far behind. As of this writing, Danielle has 71,638 Twitter followers while Michelle has 44,914, however, Michelle’s Facebook has 31,713 likes while Danielle’s has 26,693. These numbers show, when it comes to social media, these two appear to be very close with Michelle surging at just the right time.
The numbers also show that the rest of the remaining singers are not in the same league as these two. Of the remaining four singers, The Swon Brothers have the most Twitter followers with 27,860 and Sasha Allen has the most Facebook likes with 22,521. When you research the numbers showing who is on Facebook talking about the different singers from “The Voice,” both Michelle and Danielle have over 10,000 people currently talking about them while the remaining four each have around 5,000. Add into this that none of these four’s songs chart anywhere near where Michelle and Danielle do on the iTunes charts and the numbers start to show a real separation. What we don’t know is how many phone, text and internet votes each act is getting. Those numbers could swing huge for any one act, but even without access to that information it looks as though these four are all playing catch up.
Does this mean that season 4 of “The Voice” is Danielle Bradbery’s to lose? Likely, yes. However, she does have a couple of weakness. Four of the remaining six acts are country singers. These four could find themselves all fighting for the same votes. This means if Danielle has a slightly off night, a country fan may choose to vote for Amber or The Swon Brothers that night instead of her. The same can be said if someone else has a great night, like Amber did this last week with “Skyfall.” This dilution of votes could end up costing her and might create an opening that someone else, namely Michelle Chamuel, could sneak through.
She is also in danger of overexposure. Each week we hear the coaches all rave about how great Danielle is and how important she is. She seems to be taking it all in stride, but all that praise could start to annoy the viewers and cause a backlash from a few. At this point in the competition, we always see them choose their words wisely when it comes to criticism of a singer. They need to be wary of doing the same when they praise a singer. From here on out, every vote and download is almost sacred so it is very important for the coaches not to turn the viewers against an artist with their saccharine praises.
With a few weeks left in the competition anything could still happen, but at this point it is clear that Danielle Bradbery and Michelle Chamuel are quickly making this a two horse race. If someone else wants to step up and challenge them they better make a move soon or they will see these two ladies, and this season of “The Voice,” pull away and leave them in the dust.
