The Denmark Article

I’m taking this chance these days as we fill time during rehearsals to examine a couple of countries in closer detail, some that I and perhaps the market in general have been more negative -not necessarily based off the odds, but in terms of general sentiment. First up is Denmark who have been high in the odds since DMGP, mainly hovering between 2nd-3rd and gathering plenty of fan love and a win in the jury side of Eurojury, without ever really getting many supporting voices in the betting community, with the exception of the clearly biased. Let’s try and take a more reasonable look…

The Path to victory

I remain of the expectation that the Televote will probably end up deciding this contest based on some of my mathematical predictions and generally a sense televote entries will have an easier time on the jury than the jury picks will with the public, but the other side of this must be considered too. 

Not necessarily who wins the jury as that might be quite marginal and it's own debate, but which (if any) of the jury favourites can land with the public and on that side Denmark is undoubtedly in the running and looking pretty likely to be in the top 3 on that side. I would also consider Australia a lock to be in there and France too remain the only other I see actually threatening the 200pt mark on the jury vote albeit with some more variance. Yes, Finland are broadly considered in this quartet too but for this Denmark argument to work, we need a bit of a gap and I'll lay out a hypothetical jury vote where everyone does pretty well and throw in Greece too to round out the top 5 of the market:

1st Australia 230

2nd Denmark 210

3rd France 200

4th Finland 170

5th Greece 150

It's a pretty realistic top 5 and score estimate if I do say so myself with France currently a bit less sure in there. More to the point it's a score that every country would probably settle for and would make for a wide open Televote reveal sequence in which would make any Denmark layer sweat a little. Setting Greece and Finland at a fairly reasonable midpoint of 200 Televote points each gives us:

Finland 370

Greece 350

Australia 230 +?

Denmark 210 +?

France 200 +?

This scenario effectively means that Denmark need to score at least 161 on the Televote, hope Australia score 141 or less and France 170 or less.

At this stage we are getting to takes that people might have a stronger opinion on but, I think it's pretty realistic still to say that France and Australia are not guaranteed to reach those numbers. 

Therefore, we've now got to a broadly agreeable and plausible scenario where if Denmark can find 161+ points on the Televote, they can win Eurovision 2026.

Can they do that?

Maybe, although we might now have got to the hardest point of this theoretical path. JJ last year was able to get to 178 so not a mile ahead of this mark accounting for the slightly smaller field, finishing only behind Israel, Estonia and Sweden (by just 17 points) and able to beat off strong diaspora countries. Unfortunately Denmark has a few more issues which is primarily the country makeup. I don't think the idea this won't appeal to Eastern countries doesn't hold a tonne of merit and we've seen time and time again that stereotype doesn't exactly hold true but they do have plenty of their own entries to vote for in this edition and Denmark has to slide down the pecking order there.

Israel and Ukraine remain blockers to some extent too on the Western Televote, as do other diasporas. Going through and allocating "minimum" points to countries and it's pretty clear that Denmark would need to hope no other jury entry can gain traction with the public - not only as direct competition, they aren't really comparable - but in order to free up the overall number available. Denmark needs to see Czechia's score announcement start with "I'm sorry", they need to see Malta crash and burn on the Televote once more, they need the public to be bemused by Felicia's mask. And they also need France and Australia to be more than just mathematically behind on the televote.

In our scenario above that pair could technically have mid one hundreds scores and Soren still come out ok, but realistically the breakdown won't accommodate that. Denmark need France to have one of their off years where they get 50 points, Australia to fare as in previous years and get half or less of whatever the juries give them, not only to beat them in the head to heads. 

This is similar to last year where Claude, Louanne and Zoe Me all suffered disappointing scores giving room for JJ or 2019 where Duncan Laurence decimated the narrow jury competition of North Macedonia and Sweden in the televote. 

These are the big variable points up for grabs and even if absolutely no-one is sat at home thinking "Should I vote for Soren or Delta?", each has to hope the other has a relatively bad time of things. I don’t think any of the jury dominant trio - Denmark, France, Australia— can win without the other two doing pretty poorly.

Denmark reaching a 150+ Televote will also require them to genuinely still be seen as in the running on the day of the final in order to sway enough voters that it’s actually worth voting for, something that I think explains Nemo and JJ going on to strong enough televotes to win despite relatively meh performances in their semi finals that would have caused huge concerns and drifts if known.

Crossing The Finnish Line

Finland present the other clear issue with a Danish victory path. As market favourites, that applies to all but the geographical overlap makes the problem more accute for Denmark. The idea amongst many in the market is that Finland (top of most fan rankings) will appeal less to televoters than the fandom, but Denmark (already behind them in sentiment most places) are a more obvious candidate where that's the issue and primary reason most have rejected their chances.

How does "even more of a fan song" overtake a country with non-fans would be the argument.

To counter that, I would say there are actually pros to Denmarks proposal over Finland's. Granted, I'm not exactly Mr.Liekinheitin so this is closely tied together with that but for me the staging, both of which we know already, is more cohesive and intuitive. I know what emotion this is trying to convey and Soren is more of presence naturally with Finland forced to divide attention between Pete's brooding and Linda's violin playing. The respective climaxes both go for similar big endings but Soren's does feel a bit more powerful and genuine, just comparing the two. Again, this is more tied to my issues with Finland more than anything but there are cases here. The recent Violin-Gate could proceed a bit of a fan switch to Denmark maybe but this is real bubble think too.

Overall, I do think it's unlikely Denmark beat or match Finland in the televote with Liekinheitin standing out on a run through of all more, and probably having a broader casual reach too. I do think Soren however could be within 50 points of them unless it proves a runaway public favourite which does make things interesting again on the jury where I do believe Denmark have the advantage, but again not an extreme one.

For what it's worth, other issues with Denmark and Finland have been brought up around the languages and statistics on juries’ preferences but basically if neither get to 200+ I think it will have more to do with them Denmark being unspectacular as a composition and Finland being "too Eurovision 2008" although Denmark is one of those rare cases where an English version wouldn't have been a horrific idea in my opinion.

Current Expectations

Overall, my ranges currently for Denmark are 180-230 on the jury and 70-170 on the Televote (1st-3rd/4th-13th). At the very highest end, there is that 400pts that may be enough this year but the odds of reaching that, and no-one else doing so, feel a lot more remote than the odds implied 13%~. Closer to 5%.

Taking what I actually expect at the moment (210J, 110 TV) Denmark are solidly somewhere in the midst of that competitive chasing pack and speculating on an exact place too volatile and reliant on what others do. Like for many this year, we'll probably only be able to narrow it down effectively after it's semi final and it's been placed in the running order although 5th or 6th favourite would probably be more reasonable right now. They are the only inclusion on my 'what am I sure on' piece where I stated no top 4 giving pause for thought at the moment.