‘The Bachelor’ spoilers: Are Ben Higgins, Josh Murray two main frontrunners?

If you were to ask us last week at around this time who would be the next “Bachelor,” we’d list off a good four or five candidates. How a week changes things. Jared Haibon from “The Bachelorette” is going to be on “Bachelor in Paradise.” Joe Bailey had a less-than-favorable exit from the show. Meanwhile, at this point some casual fans may be forgetting about Ben Zorn, who was pretty memorable back when he was around.

At this point, we feel like we’re in a similar spot to where we were at last year, when it felt like a two-person race between Chris Soules and Arie Luyendyk Jr. for who was going to be the lead. Both had interesting jobs, and while we thought Arie was a little more dynamic, Chris had more of the story and the recency bias working in his favor.

In looking at Ben Higgins versus Josh Murray, each also has their own advantages and disadvantages entering the race here. For Ben, we feel like what he brings to the table first and foremost is recency, given that he is on this current season. He’s also shown a lot of heart, and may be a nice counterpoint to much of what we’ve seen lately. Some people have been turned off by all the talk of sex on the show, and his reaction to the fantasy suite probably spoke to some of the more conservative fans out there. As for the disadvantage, we don’t really know that much about him personally. You could say the same thing about Kaitlyn Bristowe, but she did at least have a catalog of funny moments from her season of “The Bachelor.”

Meanwhile, Josh is very well-known, and we have seen people in his position (who have “won” a season but failed to have the relationship work out) on the show before. He’s very popular in the south (a key demographic for the show), has a memorable story thanks to his past playing baseball, and has remained very active in tweeting about the show often. The major downside here is that not everyone is a Josh fan, and also his season with Andi Dorfman did not score huge ratings. Could that be a cause for concern?

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