I think what helped Ashleigh is not only did she have a good partner, but that she clearly had a rapport with said partner. Because one of the strikes against her at the beginning was that she came off as fake, like a stereotypical pagent queen/sorority girl who smiles at you but doesn't mean it. So seeing her have fun with Jakob and clearly enjoy being with him (and vice versa) added some humanity to her. Now I totally want to watch the two of them go shopping and talk about boys.